What is it exactly about Reagan that conservatives love? (Ron Paul, interview, Afghanistan)
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19 million new jobs created 1983-1989
Record 1.1 million jobs created in a single month (September 1983)
Unemployment rates among minority groups fell sharply
Strong, above average economic growth including highest annual GDP growth since the 50s
Enormous growth in median income, including growth among all fifths
Shifted tax burden to wealthy as opposed to the middle and lower income groups
Exempted most of the poor from income taxes
Sharp drop in inflation rates
Stock market doubled in value after emerging from the 70s flat
Major housing boom, American home values rose sharply in the 80s
Privatization and return to profitability of Conrail (1986)
Modernized our military
Funding military and NASA projects that would eventually give us the internet and GPS
Deregulation of communications which allowed the widespread use of fiber optics and made cable TV affordable for the average household
Reformed social security, making it sustainable for the next 50 years (from 1983)
Not sure if it was Reagan or Bush I, but one of those guys authorized Space Station Freedom, which would later become the ISS.
Leading the only successful rollback of a Communist nation to a democratic state (Grenada) in Cold War history
Turning several former OPEC enemies into allies against the USSR
Went from being bitter enemies to close friends with USSR and Gorbachev
No more countries fell to Communism under Reagan
Reversed rise in violent crime rates, which fell continuously in the 80s for the longest period since WWII (when all the men were away fighting)
Poverty rates declined from a recession high near 15% in 1983 to 12.7% by 1989
All major US railroads returned to strong profitability after being near bankruptcy in the 70s
These are just some of the things I can remember for why I personally liked Reagan's presidency. No president is perfect and Reagan certainly had his faults, but you cannot deny the good that came from his presidency. The key points of course being support for NASA, the military, staunch anti-Communism, and strong economic growth.
He oversaw the collapse of the steel industry and told the good people of Pittsburgh and the industrial midwest to "vote with their feet" and leave, rather than trying to help them in any way.
I suggest you quit making a fool of yourself. Go to the
library and do some reading on the Reagan years. I think you have jumped a head to the 1990's for convenience sake.
By the way, I'm not left wing. I'm a Libertarian. I just call them how I see them. As far as Reagan being dead/mud - it has no bearing on rewriting history to prop someone up or should I say, promote a misdirected ideal.
You're so lost on what actually happened there is no where even good to start. You think Reagan had nothing to do with ending the Cold War? Wow is all I can say. You think Reagan created the economic turmoils? He was elected because of those turmoils (mile long gas lines, double digit unemployment, double digit interest rates and a serious loss of American pride).
I don't think you've actually ever done any real research besides reading opinion pieces about what others thought of him.
Letter to Historians About Ronald Reagan (http://hnn.us/articles/5661.html - broken link)
I think this is one of the best single pieces that explains why he was so liked.
I mean we can get in to the nitty gritty but there's probably 100 threads with all that information already and can easily be found with a search of "Reagan".
He oversaw the collapse of the steel industry and told the good people of Pittsburgh and the industrial midwest to "vote with their feet" and leave, rather than trying to help them in any way.
That was the 70s, Reagan was not president until 1981;
For the record, the last time a president tried to interfere with the steel industry, he (Bush II) nearly caused a trade war with the EU and much of Asia:
Please don't take this like I'm angry or questioning the praise for him. I am honestly curious of what exactly it was about his Presidency that makes him so popular among conservatives? Even my friends will bring up, what is in my mind, the usual talking points about how Reagan ran the country perfectly.
So, in a specific, respectful and pragmatic way, could you try and describe to me what it is about Reagan that makes him so appealing to conservatives?
And please don't just say "small government," as I want specifics. Thanks!
That he stood up against the world's #2 superpower at the time and they blinked, not us. Also, that he did not apologize to the world for anything. He was proud to be an American and it showed through, time and time again. He made my family, teachers, friends, neighbors, feel safe and secure. I can remember my 6th grade teacher Mrs. Sanders stating matter of factly, " If Carter was still President, we would all be Communists right now". Whether or not that was true is besides the point. That's how Reagan made her and many others feel. Secure and knowing that America was the best country in the world
and you are full of you know what...!!! obviously you are blinded and so narrow minded you couldn't see the positives he did. Even most Democrats would argue about some of what you are saying.
Nita
Don't know if democrats would argue at all at what I have posted, but doesn't matter to me.
As far as the positives, here are some:
He appointed the first woman to the Supreme Court.
He was not a quitter - running two times before being elected.
He had wonderful relationship with Nancy, one that
should be admired by all.
Ronald Reagan truly loved this country.
I never said I didn't like the man, just not his policies
and the ramifications of them.
No doubt about it, Reagan is a Republican hero.
I'm just in the camp that thought he was an
awful president
For the record, the last time a president tried to interfere with the steel industry, he (Bush II) nearly caused a trade war with the EU and much of Asia:
Beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the steel industry in Pittsburgh began to implode. Following the 1981–1982 recession, for example, the mills laid off 153,000 workers.[57] The steel mills began to shut down.
But Pittsburghers who really want to dwell on the negative should hark back to the early to mid-1980s during the collapse of the steel industry here.
The region's unemployment rate peaked at 18.2 percent in January 1983, with 212,400 people out of work. In Beaver County alone, which lost at least five major steelmaking plants, the jobless rate hit a staggering 28 percent -- higher than for many states during the Great Depression, Mr. Briem noted.Read more: For Pittsburgh, this recession is nothing in comparison to '80s
You're so lost on what actually happened there is no where even good to start. You think Reagan had nothing to do with ending the Cold War? Wow is all I can say. You think Reagan created the economic turmoils? He was elected because of those turmoils (mile long gas lines, double digit unemployment, double digit interest rates and a serious loss of American pride).
I don't think you've actually ever done any real research besides reading opinion pieces about what others thought of him.
No, I was alive when Reagan was President. His second term I actually even had a chance to vote for him but didn't.
The former US ambassador to the Soviet Union, and father of the theory of "containment" of the same country, asserts that "the suggestion that any United States administration had the power to influence decisively the course of a tremendous domestic political upheaval in another great country on another side of the globe is simply childish." He contends that the extreme militarization of American policy strengthened hard-liners in the Soviet Union. "Thus the general effect of Cold War extremism was to delay rather than hasten the great change that overtook the Soviet Union."
Though the arms-race spending undoubtedly damaged the fabric of the Soviet civilian economy and society even more than it did in the United States, this had been going on for 40 years by the time Mikhail Gorbachev came to power without the slightest hint of impending doom. Gorbachev's close adviser, Aleksandr Yakovlev, when asked whether the Reagan administration's higher military spending, combined with its "Evil Empire" rhetoric, forced the Soviet Union into a more conciliatory position, responded:
It played no role. None. I can tell you that with the fullest responsibility. Gorbachev and I were ready for changes in our policy regardless of whether the American president was Reagan, or Kennedy, or someone even more liberal. It was clear that our military spending was enormous and we had to reduce it.
Sounds like the above, is something the US might have to start seriously thinking about now, as well.
What is it exactly about Reagan that conservatives love?
He aided and abetted all the deregulation (smaller government) that lead to this economic disaster.
Oh, you mean Clinton, and how he deregulated the Communicaions biz?
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