Reagan's Legacy [Reagan's Presidency, Record of an Actor Gone Wrong]
Reagan’s Presidency, Record of an Actor Gone Wrong
My first vote was for Franklin D. Roosevelt, and every vote since then has been for a Democratic candidate. This stated, no one will be surprised at the content of this paper.
It was reported that Ronald Reagan was a registered Democrat during the early days of his political life. I have no information regarding his changing parties. .Following his election to the presidency his political life fitted well into what I conceived a Republican to be. He continued in this image and I never heard that anyone ever suspected that he was a ‘closet democrat’. It is easy to understand why a Republican would look with pride on the accomplishments of his administration. He played his roles well.
However, his career as a Republican President was a disaster for the people of the United States. The most enduring gift to us was a debt of unprecedented proportion, which will continue to be a burden for generations to come. His administration set trade deficit records year after year and his policies converted the United States from the world’s largest creditor into its largest debtor. Many years later the good financial management policies of the Clinton administration got us to a position of beginning to pay off that debt, but President George W. Bush chose to follow a different path and the National Debt is growing in Reagan proportions again.
Amid the tensions of the Cold War when the people feared that a nuclear missile attack might come at anytime, Mr. Reagan claimed that his proposed “Star Wars” program would supply us an umbrella that would protect us against any missile attack launched against us. While a host of qualified scientists advised that the system would not work he continued pushing the program.. After spending billions and going through a series of unsuccessful tests, the military leaders convinced him that the program should be dropped. In addition to the expense, the program raised the nuclear war tension so much that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved its Doomsday Clock in 1984 to three minutes to midnight.
He pushed through the program of deregulation of the Savings & Loan industry which resulted in a near meltdown and a subsequent bailout that cost the taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.
Through a program of non-enforcement, under-funding and rewriting of health and safety regulations Mr. Reagan undermined the agencies that had been established to protect the health and safety of American workers and consumers. This included the Environmental Protection Agency, whose budget was cut in half, virtually eliminating its effectiveness.
By firing 1,800 striking air traffic controllers early in his term Mr. Reagan sent a message to employers that they could act against striking or organizing workers with his blessing. This established him as an anti-labor president which continued throughout his administration.
By directing wars in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua Mr. Reagan created a climate of terror and fear in Central America that took tens of thousands of lives and entrenched narrow elite groups who repressed poor majorities for generations. Officials in his administration organized a secret group to sell arms to Iran to raise funds to finance these wars, resulting in the Iran-Contra Scandal.
Mr. Reagan’s record on civil rights is disgraceful. He opposed the Voting Rights Act and the civil rights laws, but congress prevented his canceling them. In his view Martin Luther King, Jr. was a communist. He wanted to give tax breaks to colleges that practiced racial discrimination, he praised apartheid in South Africa and thought Nelson Mandela should stay in jail. Over his veto Congress imposed sanctions on South Africa.
He turned the war on poverty into a war on the poor, slashing housing subsidies by 80%. Supporting his position he said “One problem we’ve had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on grates, the homeless who are homeless, you might say, by choice.”
It was sad to see Mr. Reagan afflicted by Alzheimer’s, and our sympathy went out to his wife and children as they cared for him in his later years. Yet, he was proud of his record as President which was of his own making. That record is what we should remember as his legacy.
Jerry Clements 7/2/04
My first vote was for Franklin D. Roosevelt, and every vote since then has been for a Democratic candidate. This stated, no one will be surprised at the content of this paper.
It was reported that Ronald Reagan was a registered Democrat during the early days of his political life. I have no information regarding his changing parties. .Following his election to the presidency his political life fitted well into what I conceived a Republican to be. He continued in this image and I never heard that anyone ever suspected that he was a ‘closet democrat’. It is easy to understand why a Republican would look with pride on the accomplishments of his administration. He played his roles well.
However, his career as a Republican President was a disaster for the people of the United States. The most enduring gift to us was a debt of unprecedented proportion, which will continue to be a burden for generations to come. His administration set trade deficit records year after year and his policies converted the United States from the world’s largest creditor into its largest debtor. Many years later the good financial management policies of the Clinton administration got us to a position of beginning to pay off that debt, but President George W. Bush chose to follow a different path and the National Debt is growing in Reagan proportions again.
Amid the tensions of the Cold War when the people feared that a nuclear missile attack might come at anytime, Mr. Reagan claimed that his proposed “Star Wars” program would supply us an umbrella that would protect us against any missile attack launched against us. While a host of qualified scientists advised that the system would not work he continued pushing the program.. After spending billions and going through a series of unsuccessful tests, the military leaders convinced him that the program should be dropped. In addition to the expense, the program raised the nuclear war tension so much that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved its Doomsday Clock in 1984 to three minutes to midnight.
He pushed through the program of deregulation of the Savings & Loan industry which resulted in a near meltdown and a subsequent bailout that cost the taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.
Through a program of non-enforcement, under-funding and rewriting of health and safety regulations Mr. Reagan undermined the agencies that had been established to protect the health and safety of American workers and consumers. This included the Environmental Protection Agency, whose budget was cut in half, virtually eliminating its effectiveness.
By firing 1,800 striking air traffic controllers early in his term Mr. Reagan sent a message to employers that they could act against striking or organizing workers with his blessing. This established him as an anti-labor president which continued throughout his administration.
By directing wars in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua Mr. Reagan created a climate of terror and fear in Central America that took tens of thousands of lives and entrenched narrow elite groups who repressed poor majorities for generations. Officials in his administration organized a secret group to sell arms to Iran to raise funds to finance these wars, resulting in the Iran-Contra Scandal.
Mr. Reagan’s record on civil rights is disgraceful. He opposed the Voting Rights Act and the civil rights laws, but congress prevented his canceling them. In his view Martin Luther King, Jr. was a communist. He wanted to give tax breaks to colleges that practiced racial discrimination, he praised apartheid in South Africa and thought Nelson Mandela should stay in jail. Over his veto Congress imposed sanctions on South Africa.
He turned the war on poverty into a war on the poor, slashing housing subsidies by 80%. Supporting his position he said “One problem we’ve had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on grates, the homeless who are homeless, you might say, by choice.”
It was sad to see Mr. Reagan afflicted by Alzheimer’s, and our sympathy went out to his wife and children as they cared for him in his later years. Yet, he was proud of his record as President which was of his own making. That record is what we should remember as his legacy.
Jerry Clements 7/2/04
posted by Jeremiah | 3:08 PM
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