Now that the Republican Party has lost control of Congress and suffered huge losses in state and local elections this past November, politicians of the right are clamoring to be more like former President Ronald Reagan while running from President George W. Bush, whom they blame for engineering their losses.
Those who have declared or are apparently on the verge of running for president in 2008 are the most obvious in their love of all things Reagan.
At the recent Conservative Political Action Conference Rudy Giuliani, the new front runner for the Republican presidential nomination, ranted on about his admiration for Reagan, Reagan's legacy and Reagan's vision to fight the spread of communism.
The Republican Party "must return to the common sense Republican ideals of fighting for hardworking Americans," said Mitt Romney, the retired Massachusetts governor.
Arizona Sen. John McCain says Reagan provided the kind of leadership the GOP needs. "We can do it again if we lead and inspire as he did," McCain claims. Even age isn't a problem for the 70-year-old McCain who said, "Ronald Reagan wasn't" too old to be president.
And Sam Brownback, the Kansas senator, labels himself "a full-scale Ronald Reagan conservative." On his recent announcement to enter the 2008 race he reiterated his love for all things Reagan.
At the Republican debate Thursday night at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., the 2008 hopefuls literally gushed over Reagan, calling his name 19 times in the 90-minute debate. "Ronald Reagan was a president of strength," Romney opined. "Ronald Reagan used to say, we spend money like a drunken sailor," said McCain. Former New York City Mayor Giuliani praised "that Ronald Reagan optimism."
As the campaigning heats up, expect repeated love for Reagan, repeated praise of his greatness and genius, repeated fawning over his memory. Expect Reagan, Reagan, Reagan ad infinitum over the next 18 months.
But, can the nation afford another Reagan, whose presidency set the nation on the disastrous course now followed by Bush, the president numerous Republicans cut and run from daily?
Examine the true Reagan legacy to see where these men might lead the nation should any of them succeed to the presidency.
Reagan compiled one of the worst legacies in modern America politics and did nothing to better the United States. Bush only made matters worse while traveling the very path that Reagan laid out.
A list of Reagan "accomplishments" has to include economic disaster, subversion, explosion of crime, misuse of the military, wasted resources, paranoia, and a general anti-democracy and un-America agenda. Those are just his domestic accomplishments. In foreign policy, Reagan left a bloody trail of mass murder and genocide through his support, training and arming of Latin American dictators who slaughtered hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of their people just to keep a few privileged right-wing elites in seats of power and lives of luxury while the majority lived in abject poverty and misery.
Let's start with economic disaster.
Reagan mismanaged the economy so badly that he presided over the worst recession in America since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Unemployment hit 10.8% under Reagan, the highest since 1940 when the world was still in the Depression.
Reagan increased a national debt of less one one trillion dollars ~ much of it refinanced costs from World War II ~ and ran it to more than five trillion with his tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations while increasing military spending. The debt went from 33.5% of the Gross Domestic Product to 75% under Reagan. Poverty, that hit the historic low of 11.4% under Jimmy Carter, rose about 33%. Homelessness exploded and Reagan's deregulation and willingness to look the other way while savings-and-loan executives looted their institutions saddled the nation with a $500 billion bill. Regulations exist to address evils that are present in the system, and when those regulations are removed the evils return, and they returned with a vengeance in the savings-and-loan industry, just as they returned later in deregulation of the electric utility industry. None of this benefited "hardworking Americans," as claimed by Romney.
Right wingers claim (and even the most-trusted man in America, Walter Cronkite, repeated as fact) that Reagan's tax cuts resulted in an explosion of tax receipts because of economic growth. Not true. Tax receipts went up 82 percent in the 12 years of the Reagan-George H. W. Bush regime; but they increased 177 percent in the 12 years preceding the Reagan-Bush rule. During the Reagan-Bush years, population increased 12 percent and inflation increased 70 percent ~ 12 plus 70 equals 82. That means there was not a cent of increased tax collection generated because of the Reagan tax cuts. But, the rich and corporations paid billions of dollars less in taxes, and that had to be made up with tax increases on working-class Americans. The payroll tax was increased dramatically ~ with its surpluses used to camouflage the Reagan-inflated deficit ~ and many deductions historically available to middle-class consumers were eliminated. Those tax increases on working Americans were not "fighting for hardworking Americans", as Romney claimed, they were the beginning of the class warfare being waged by the elite on the lower classes. And placing hundreds of billions of borrowed dollars into the economy, then immediately taxing them also helped increase tax receipts.
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Thomas Bonsell is a former newspaper editor (in Oregon, New York and Colorado) United States Air Force cryptanalyst and National Security Agency intelligence agent. He became one of American journalism's leading constitutional experts through years of study at Georgetown University Graduate School of Government in Washington, D.C., and tries (without much success) to be patient with people who argue endlessly on subjects they have never studied. He is the author of "The Un-Americans: Trashing of the United States Constitution in the American Press", a critique of the mainstream media for ignorance of, or disdain for, our constitutional principles of self-government. He left newspaper work years ago, disgusted at the direction the Fourth Estate ~ under the mismanagement of ineffectual, out-of-touch, can't-do executives ~ was taking away from honest responsible journalism and the observation that there was no place in the mainstream media for a progressive, or liberal, constitutional "expert". Bonsell is an honors graduate of Woodbury College (Los Angeles, California) with a bachelor of business administration degree. He is profiled in Marquis Who's Who in America. (Self-portrait, above, was handled to make author/artist appear prettier than he actually is.)
Personal motto: Have brain; will use.
When reagan died, I could not believe the hype. As a former Californian, I never thought of him as anything but a disaster from the gitgo. Well. . . excepting for the Gipper and Bonzo's buddy. How refreshing to see someone write of the reagan years in a truthful manner. I believe those voting for him in the poll were thinking of Bonzo, or the gipper. I for one will never believe that his Alzheimers came on after he left office. I believe it was evident during a great part of his presidency. He was protected by those 'proxy presidents' who made the decisions. I could NOT believe my eyes and ears, during the small amount of time I spent trying to watch the repub. debates, as one after the other tried to set himself up as 'reagan reincarnate.'
by
Pat Herrick (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 154 comments)
on Wednesday, May 9, 2007 at 5:37:44 PM
I was beginning to wonder if I were the only person who remembered just exactly what a horrible president Reagan was. Remember the CIA carting home tons of cocaine, payment for the arms we provided the insurgents? Remember Reagan's claim of "not remembering" this? Remember Ollie North and his lies? Remember the so-called "trickle-down economics"! Remember how real estate values dropped through a deep hole? Too bad those who remember Reagan as a good president, all have alzheimers!
by
lucydavis (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 88 comments)
on Thursday, May 10, 2007 at 3:58:29 PM
In my opinion, Reagan had symptoms of Alzheimer's during his first term. They were well-known to the insiders and they ran him again anyway. The second term differed markedly in many ways as far as his MO was concerned. He NEVER did anything of a spontaneous nature. Everything was programmed and they never deviated from the script.
In his first term, les Aspin spent a lot of time at the WH. He told me that he could never understand why Reagan needed 15 minutes between meetings. Then he found out. Without it, he was totally lost. His aides said it harked back to his "B" movie days when they were churning out movies at a rapid clip. Ronnie needed time between scenes to practice dialog, etc. Well, I think now we know the REAL reason for that 15 minutes.
I watched my Dad go downhill, very similar symptoms. He could dig out the past, but at some point, he stopped laying down new tracks.
by
calvinthecat (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments)
on Wednesday, June 20, 2007 at 4:23:21 PM
3 comments
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