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Many of Ronald Reagan's policies and actions during the 1980s started the downward spiral of the American working and middles classes. Relaxing merger requirements and enforcement was one. His firing of the striking PATCO air traffic controllers started the erosion of union protection for workers.
He also removed the FCC Fairness Doctrine and relaxed restrictions on media companies amassing TV, radio, and print media in local regions. This allowed the rise of conglomerates such as Fox News and Sinclair Media with their single point of view.
After using the growth of the US deficit as a point to defeat Carter in the 1980 presidential election, Reagan's increased spending and tax reduction policies lead to the start of continuing increases in the national deficit and debt.
Reagan will be seen as the start of the GOP unraveling of the US. (Assuming anyone else gets to write that history.) Between feeding the rabid anti-tax mindset, empowering the prejudice of the Christian right and encouraging the NRA to go full batsh*t, his long term legacy will not be a kind one.
And he simply happened to be President when the Cold War could no longer be sustained. Half-credit for timing.
Moderator note: This thread is posted in the History forum. We have followed the policy that the current US Administration and the immediate past Administration are off limits. Prior to that, a topic might apply to History. Someone has suggested that this thread should be in Politics and Other Controversies. Well, FACTS about the Reagan Administration are legitimate topics for the History forum. Personal opinions and political rants are not. Posts that qualify as either Politics or Other Controversies are not welcome here. If anyone can't figure out how to stay focused on History and not on political opinions, problems may result.
Many of Ronald Reagan's policies and actions during the 1980s started the downward spiral of the American working and middles classes. Relaxing merger requirements and enforcement was one. His firing of the striking PATCO air traffic controllers started the erosion of union protection for workers.
He also removed the FCC Fairness Doctrine and relaxed restrictions on media companies amassing TV, radio, and print media in local regions. This allowed the rise of conglomerates such as Fox News and Sinclair Media with their single point of view.
After using the growth of the US deficit as a point to defeat Carter in the 1980 presidential election, Reagan's increased spending and tax reduction policies lead to the start of continuing increases in the national deficit and debt.
First we have to look at your premise - the decline of the middle class. What you do see is a huge difference between the poorest. i.e. not more poor people, but much more rich people and they are getting richer. This trend appears to have started in the 70s. But really what you see is a trend up the income ladder, not down. From 1971 to 2019, the share of adults in the upper-income tier increased from 14% to 20%. Meanwhile, the share in the lower-income tier increased from 25% to 29%. Middle class are moving up to the rich class more than moving to the poor class. Obviously that's a good thing. Also, the rise and decline of the middle class is really a numbers game, not a politics game - housing had the biggest impact. Much of this actually from 2006 to 2009, as a house represented much of middle class wealth. When that bubble burst, so did the wealth. That's a good think of course as housing was inflated, and it lets new home buyers into the market.
The other factors you name in terms of Reagan administrative action are really inconsequential. Besides the aforementioned housing bubble, other factors impact the middle class - #1 being globalization of the economy. i.e. with improvements in logistics and technology we can have someone in China or India do this or that much cheaper than an American worker.
Also consider that many social programs, some carefully built over decades, were simply axed by the Reagan administration, the first chops at the safety net built in stages since FDR and modernized under LBJ. While some were replaced later, they're still saplings and the toxic notion that such programs were just parasitic waste etc. began with Reagan. Or at least became institutionalized.
Which should have surprised no one; virtually the only thing he's remembered for as California governor is closing all the state mental institutions, another "money saving" move that has had serious repercussions to the very present, starting with some uncountable number of murders and other violent crimes.
(After all, haven't we been assured, largely by Reagan's heirs and assigns, that violence stems from mental illness and no other cause?)
virtually the only thing he's remembered for as California governor is closing all the state mental institutions, another "money saving" move that has had serious repercussions to the very present, starting with some uncountable number of murders and other violent crimes.
(After all, haven't we been assured, largely by Reagan's heirs and assigns, that violence stems from mental illness and no other cause?)
Not sure what you mean by "haven't we been assured...", but it seems your issue on this matter might be in regards to the changes in state law regarding mandatory mental institutional holds and/or changes in the HIPAA act which required confidentiality in the handling of mental issues. Indeed Reagan signed the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act in 1967 as governer to end the practice of institutionalizing patients against their will, or for indefinite amounts of time. This law is regarded by some as a “patient’s bill of rights”.
Most of us would call that a good thing, unless your Nurse Ratched from "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest".
Not sure what you mean by "haven't we been assured..."
Trying not to get into hot-button issues, as requested. I think you know exactly what's meant here, but there's no way to proceed without getting the thread closed or sent off to the cesspool.
And yes, changes have been made to many of the things Reagan demolished — it has been forty or so years, after all. But the few positive things you might note are pretty feeble against not just the sledgehammer damage to safety net components but opening the door to allow/encourage such ill-considered acts. Just as Nixon's real crime was destroying two centuries of respect for the office.
Many of Ronald Reagan's policies and actions during the 1980s started the downward spiral of the American working and middles classes. Relaxing merger requirements and enforcement was one. His firing of the striking PATCO air traffic controllers started the erosion of union protection for workers.
He also removed the FCC Fairness Doctrine and relaxed restrictions on media companies amassing TV, radio, and print media in local regions. This allowed the rise of conglomerates such as Fox News and Sinclair Media with their single point of view.
After using the growth of the US deficit as a point to defeat Carter in the 1980 presidential election, Reagan's increased spending and tax reduction policies lead to the start of continuing increases in the national deficit and debt.
And tell us how you really feel about him? I for one, and we worked or my husband did, very close to him, both as a governor and as president know he did as much for our country as any modern day president and probably more than most. Was he perfect? of course not was he a good or close to great President? He sure was. He was one of the few that was respected around the world.
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