Ronald Reagan's Place in History (60's, Hitler, biggest, economy)
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He did the right thing at the right time. His policies were effective in the 80's, as there was a different economic climate than there is today. Too many people today want to try and implement those policies now in 2012, which I don't think would work. As a Republican, I wish Reagan wasn't treated as such a giant among conservatives. It's 2012, not the 1980's. Let's move on.
Does the Left ever, ever admit JFK was a total failure? "Move on"...give JFK credit for the disaster he created with expanding our involvement into Vietnam? To read history, LBJ gets all the blame for Vietnam, not JFK. JFK gets credit for moving on the Civil Rights movement, but he stood on the sidelines waiting for the 1964 election to pass. He did not want to anger his Southern Democrats.
When is the left and the MSM going to admit JFK was a disaster and "move on?
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Economically, his "trickle-down" economic theory continues to haunt us today as the only economic theory that his party clings to. It has never worked, and helps those who are privileged remain that way. It helps those who benefit from the unearned privilege, continue to do so. The trickle never happens. His lack of creativity in devising a more ingenious and effective economic solution for Republicans to implement, only underscores the fact that he was a mediocre president at best. He wasn't a visionary. He wasn't supremely intelligent. He didn't appear to have to overcome any adversity to get where he was. His quips are a California lark trademark.
In Reagan, it is true that he was not a great president who came along and caused change. Rather, those were great times, and this medicore, second-rate actor happened to be in the right place at the right time. The cold war was set to end anyway. Reagan benefited from the presence of a truly great man in Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev. I would place Reagan far, far below our current President, maybe a notch above Bush who was the worst ever.
So "trickle down" never worked? How is that "trickle up" economy working these days? You know Reagan said the Earned Income Credit was the best welfare program ever passed? The Left hated Reagan because he ran the Communists out of Hollywood and they never got over it.
He was not a Harvard graduate like JFK but he knew America. Why is it JFK is thought of as being so "visionary? but got us deeply involved in Vietnam? Almost caused a nuclear war over his failed invasion of Cuba? Banging some teenager in his wife's bed? Why is JFK so clever?
Gorbachev did not want Communism to end. It was the people living in Communism wanted it to end. "Gorby" tried "Commie Light" but the people got a taste of freedom and it got away from "Gorby".
It is amazing to see how the Left will spin history in a weak attempt to not give Reagan credit for ending the Cold War.
Absolute nonsense. How Reagan gets credit for something that NO ONE in the United States government even saw coming is amazing, and rather insulting to the policies of Mikail Gorbachev and those who developed the democratic movements that swept through the Warsaw nations as a result of those policies.
This reasoning is flawed in fundamental respects. It both greatly overstates the importance of Reagan's "toughness" in bringing the Soviets to their knees and downplays the truly historic departure of new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev from his predecessors. Three key weaknesses in the narrative stand out.
The Left will never quit in trying to rewrite history. They will never give credit to Reagan for ending the Cold War since he defeated their dream country, the USSR. Sure, "nobody saw it coming", because "they" the beltway, Washington elites, CIA, etc...made their careers on the Cold War never ending....but Reagan was ahead of them, he was unwilling to surrender. He believed the Soviet Union could be defeated and he did it. Remember his speeches calling the Soviets evil? The left, MSM went nuts, but who was right and who was wrong?
We won, Reagan won, the Left lost, Communism lost, USSR was defeated.
Actually, most historians from the Left are rather critical of JFK, LBJ, et al. Moreover, your statement in bold represents your inability to understand what the writing of history is--it's all revision--including your statements on this thread. All of your posts represent the Right's attempt to rewrite history. One cannot write history without rewriting it or else it'd be plagiarism or merely reporting like wikipedia does.
JFK? JFK caused the Cuban Missile Crisis. JFK flubbed Berlin. Flubbed the Bay of Pigs. Flubbed the murder of Ngo Diem and his dim-witted half-brother side-kick, and just about messed up everything. Oh, yeah, the non-existent missile gap and the non-existent bomber gap.
Nixon? Nixon and that idiot Kissinger damn near started WW III with their duplicity over the Pakistani-Indian War. Sending the Enterprise there was really stupid, especially in light of Kissinger's playing China against India. And then of course we have Golda Meier threatening to go nuclear if Nixon doesn't give Israel satellite and aerial recon, plus supplies, because the Israeli's are getting their asses kicked in the Yom Kippur War.
Carter? Mucked up Afghanistan, mucked up Iran, mucked up damn near everything as well.
Truman? You mean the guy who thought he could nationalize US steel mills, because, you know, the president derives extra-constitutional authority from the Stamp Act Congress, the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress and the Articles of Confederation. Oh, and Truman the clown who over-threw the Greek government?
At least Ike stayed on top of things.
And Johnson? What a loser. Vietnam, overthrew the Greek government again, plus all of the other shenanigans he and the Neo-Cons (they were called Social Democrats at that time) were into.
I'll take Reagan (or Ike) any day.
I can tell from the quoted section above that Mircea has a fundamental misunderstanding of my position on Reagan and the Vietnam war. Moreover his post here represents his fundamental misunderstanding of my posts on this thread and other threads (which he never responded to my rebuttals).
Fundamentally.... and Declarationally.... since you like adverbs!
There were also corresponding increases in the SECA tax rates for Medicare. So, it looks like Nixon did his job, Ford did his job, Carter did his job, Reagan did his job, and Bush the Elder did his job to protect the financial stability of both Social Security and Medicare.
It didn't work. In 1980, Medicare spending was $35 billion, or 5.8% of the federal budget. By 1990, it was $110 billion, or 8.5%. On an annual basis, it was rising year-on-year in percentage terms even with the adjustments that were made. It also steadily increased throughout the decade as a percentage of national GDP. Medicaid followed the same curve.
The national debt rose from $709 billion in 1980 to $2.7 trillion by 1989, which of course included an increased chunk of the federal budget going to service on interest.
These trends were not dealt with during the 1980's. They were pushed on down the line.
So I guess the other 150 Reagan sucks threads weren't good enough. You had to go and make #151. Is that because all of the nonsense that keeps getting repeated as the "truth" is debunked so heavily with facts that there's not a chance in hell you could revive those threads? From this point on we'll called them dead-threads as if someone killed them. Maybe we can even make up a new term for the person killing them like Thread Killerâ„¢ or something crazy.
Location: Prescott Valley,az summer/east valley Az winter
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I'm surprised that all the posts until the last one forets that Reagan precided over the largest buildups of the national debt ever.
Also the biggest shift in taxes from upper to the middle class.
It didn't work. In 1980, Medicare spending was $35 billion, or 5.8% of the federal budget. By 1990, it was $110 billion, or 8.5%. On an annual basis, it was rising year-on-year in percentage terms even with the adjustments that were made. It also steadily increased throughout the decade as a percentage of national GDP. Medicaid followed the same curve.
The national debt rose from $709 billion in 1980 to $2.7 trillion by 1989, which of course included an increased chunk of the federal budget going to service on interest.
These trends were not dealt with during the 1980's. They were pushed on down the line.
Quote:
The design of the 1983 financing scheme produced a large buildup of the reserve in the near term so that this source of investment income might help defray future costs when the "baby boom" generation began to move into beneficiary status.55 The effect of this approach to program funding can clearly be seen in Chart 3.
Now, regarding it being Reagan's fault or something like that for not taking on Medicare:
Quote:
Interviewer: There was one other scope issue I think, and that was Bob Beck made some suggestion that you might also take on Medicare. I guess you managed to rebuff that? Ball: Yes. Greenspan supported me on that. It was just too much. Beck proposed it-- I attribute to him this motivation, he never said it--that is, that if you had to supply the money in our recommendations for Medicare as well, we would have had a much harder time to avoid benefit cuts. The more expensive everything was made to look the better off he would have liked it.
So basically they practiced some self-delusion and hand-over-the-cranial-orifices legislation. They knew they didn't want any cuts and to achieve that they ignored the long-range problems of Medicare because they knew that if that was added into the mix that instead of just getting tax increases they would have had to cut benefits to to keep it solvent.
Reagan spent more than any President in history before him and he raised taxes. Wages for most people declined during Reagan's presidency. Reagan spent billions on disastrous programs such as Star Wars and the War on Drugs. The latter did nothing to stop drugs and created an entire prison industrial complex around drugs. Reagan also staged a sleezy deal with the Iranians to have the hostages released the day he took office. Conservatives don't like to admit these things because it goes against their false belief of Reagan. They instead like to blame Liberals for big spending and pretend they stand for lower taxes.
Reagan believed in American because he believed he could fool all of these gullible people into thinking he cared so much. The modern conservative party continues to take advantage of gullible people who think tax breaks for rich people trickles down to them somehow. After 30 years of hearing this nonsense it hasn't panned out to be true. Yet they still believe it.
Its funny that I actually think Eisenhower was a much better Republican president than Reagan and he accomplished way more than Reagan. Few conservatives mention Eisenhower because he is not elevated to this mythical status like Reagan is.
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