Think Again: Ronald Reagan

"Conservatives Loved Reagan."

Not always. As early as 1982, after Reagan skirmished with Israel, declined to send U.S. troops to Central America, and refused to cut off Western loans to communist Poland, Commentary's Norman Podhoretz declared that neoconservatives were "sinking into a state of near political despair." New York Times columnist William Safire announced that "if Ronald Reagan fails to awake to the hard-liners' anger at his betrayal, he will discover that he has lost his bedrock constituency." By 1984, after Reagan withdrew troops from their peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, Podhoretz moaned that "in the use of military power, Mr. Reagan was much more restrained" than his right-wing supporters had hoped.

But that was nothing compared with the howls of outrage that accompanied Reagan's dovish turn toward the Soviet Union. In 1986, when Reagan would not cancel his second summit with Gorbachev over Moscow's imprisonment of an American journalist, Podhoretz accused him of having "shamed himself and the country" in his "craven eagerness" to give away the nuclear store. Washington Post columnist George Will said the administration had crumpled "like a punctured balloon." When Reagan signed the INF Treaty, most Republicans vying to succeed him came out in opposition. Grassroots conservative leaders established the Anti-Appeasement Alliance to oppose ratification and ran newspaper advertisements comparing Gorbachev to Hitler and Reagan to Neville Chamberlain. Reagan, wailed Will, is "elevating wishful thinking to the status of political philosophy."

Therein lay the rub. Reagan's conservative allies were mostly pessimists. They saw conflict as the eternal reality of world affairs. But Reagan was a radical optimist who thought that every story should have a happy ending. Will wrote that he "is painfully fond of the least conservative sentiment conceivable, a statement taken from an anti-conservative, Thomas Paine: 'We have it in our power to begin the world over again.' Any time, any place, that is nonsense."

But it was because Reagan could envision a dramatically better world that he could see the opportunity Gorbachev offered -- and seized the chance to bring it about. His conservative critics, by contrast, were so convinced that the world was a nasty place that they blinded themselves to the possibility of radical progress, even when it was occurring before their very eyes.

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ARJUNA

2:31 AM ET

June 8, 2010

An interesting article

As mentioned on the post " Reagan was terrified of war. He took office eager to vanquish Nicaragua's Sandinista government and its rebel allies in El Salvador, both of which were backed by Cuba and the Soviet Union. But at an early meeting, when Secretary of State Alexander Haig suggested that achieving this goal might world top online gaming stories require bombing Cuba, the suggestion "scared the shit out of Ronald Reagan," according to White House aide Michael Deaver." That was true.

LUKUS

9:10 AM ET

lukus

I consider myself a true Reaganite. He's in my top 5 best presidents the U.S. has had.

Saying that, these "warhound reasons" aren't what I remember (or espouse) for the success of Reagan's legacy. 7 pages, and it's not until the very end that the real reason for the success of Reagan is mentioned. Namely, his economic policies. The U.S. was coming out of the profound failure of President Carter's administration and it's terrible economic policies. Specifically, taxing the producers into the dirt. Home mortgage interest rates under Carter were past 20% (and up to 26%, what kind of rioting in the streets would we have if that were to happen now?).

Reagan said we need to tighten up our belts, take responsibility for ourselves, and then cut out much of the top end income taxes. Getting to keep more of what you work for is a powerful incentive to work harder, and that's what people did. Once that economic ball got rolling, we had more economic growth than we knew what to do with.

And the 80's weren't just about profits and economic excess, charitable giving went through the roof. The rest of the world looked at our success in the 80's and wanted some for themselves.

No, the real legacy of Reagan wasn't his hawkishness, it was his eternal optimism. He made us feel proud to be American. And then he gave us the means to be productive and work hard. Personal responsibility and not dependency. Supply side economics rules!

(And that's exactly what Obama isn't about.)

VELARO

10:50 AM ET

We can criticize some of the

We can criticize some of the economic policies during the Carter administration, but the recession had much to do with oil shocks. And if we talk about supply side economics and lower taxes, it's worth noting that despite the dip in the Carter years, the data clearly show that economic growth was actually stronger in the thirty years before Reagan took office than in the thirty years afterwards when taxes were substantially lower. I'm not claiming a causal relationship, but clearly, somewhat higher taxes are not the poison for the economy you seem to think they are.

STRATDUDE

3:06 PM ET

didn't you read the article?

Exactly the kind of bs this article debunks. Reagan's "real legacy" was George W. Bush, who brought the ridiculous voodoo supply side fallacies into full fruition.

SPRUCE MADISON

7:06 PM ET

Not so much

Reagan's supposed economic miracle basically amounted to the fact that running consistently large deficits will stimulate the economy. Nothing we didn't already know. But not exactly a formula for sustainable economic prosperity, as the next couple of presidents who got to clean up the mess found out.

USNA77

4:18 PM ET

June 9, 2010

Carter's Economic Policies

Any economic success that may have been attributed to Reagan had its real roots in monetary policies employed by Carter's appointee Paul Volcker to head the Federal Reserve. The high interest rates (read tight money) policies put the squeeze on inflation that plagued the nation's economy for much of the 70s. Feel good measures like Nixon's wage-price controls and Ford's WIN buttons (for Whip Inflation Now) didn't do the trick.

Strong medicine rarely tastes good, but is necessary to ensure survival of the patient. High interest rates under Carter got inflation under control, and that allowed Reagan's stimulant deficit spending to actually create jobs instead of simply fueling more inflation.

ED1

6:30 PM ET

Reagan v. Obama tax rates

Quoting Lukus:
Reagan said we need to tighten up our belts, take responsibility for ourselves, and then cut out much of the top end income taxes. Getting to keep more of what you work for is a powerful incentive to work harder, and that's what people did. Once that economic ball got rolling, we had more economic growth than we knew what to do with.

OK, then. So you're saying Obama should raise the top tax rate to 50 percent? Because that's what Reagan had.

Obama's tax rates:
10%
15%
25%
28%
36%
39.6%

Reagan's tax rates:
0.0% $0 $3,670
11.0% $3,670 $5,940
12.0% $5,940 $8,200
14.0% $8,200 $12,840
16.0% $12,840 $17,270
18.0% $17,270 $21,800
22.0% $21,800 $26,550
25.0% $26,550 $32,270
28.0% $32,270 $37,980
33.0% $37,980 $49,420
38.0% $49,420 $64,750
42.0% $64,750 $92,370
45.0% $92,370 $118,050
49.0% $118,050 $175,250
50.0% $175,250 -

TPFLOOD

2:26 PM ET

June 14, 2010

Michael Cox; bruce; dan; jeff; john; pinger

reply to ed1 regarding :Reagan's 50% tax rates".

Please read the Tax Reform Act of 1986.

BORDHEAD

10:20 AM ET

President Feelgood

Lukus; I agree that Saint Ronnies best attributes were his ability to exude optimism, and he was indeed the Great Communicator. But his economic policies and execution of same: not so much. Remember, his huge military build-up created the largest budget deficit in U.S. history to that time (pales in comparison to what we have now). Another contributor to the budget deficit was corporate tax cuts. He didn't really do much in the way of tax relief for the middle class, if one really examines the numbers. Bush senior did not do much to curb the deficit, nor did he provide much tax relief for the working folks (read my lips: no new taxes). It wasn't until the Clinton administration that the budget deficit was really attacked. But Ronnie did make us feel good though with his heart felt chats to the regular folks. I'm sure that self-professed Reaganites (like yourself) more likely bask in the glow of of his folksy speeches more than anything else.

5:14 PM ET

He was the Great

He was the Great Communicator, and that is not a derogatory. Reagan managed to pass what he did with both houses firmly in the Dem majority. He did it by effectively using the bully pulpit and creating such a demand from the electorate that the Dems more or less had to go along.

Taxing corporations is a fallacy. You can levy all the taxes you want on a corporation and it just ends up in the price of the goods you buy. Corporations will ALWAYS pass on the cost of doing business to the consumer. It is an indirect tax on the consumer. One that, by percentages, tends to hit the middle class harder than the "rich". BTW, there are indirect taxes everywhere, from health care mandates to safety features required on autos. I'm not saying they are necessarily bad, BUT they disproportionately hit the middle and lower classes as a percentage of income.

Bush senior was no Reaganite. Bush senior was foisted upon Reagan by the RNC, a "take him or we won't back you" kind of deal. There was no love lost between the two, and Bush senior went about reversing much of what Reagan accomplished.

As for Clinton attacking the budget deficit, he did it only because he had to. Both houses were (briefly) Republican and had more popular support than they had had in a long time. The self preservation political gene ran strong in Clinton, and he more or less co-opted much of his fiscal policy from the Republican majority, much to the chagrin of the house Dems.

I don't see this as an "us" vs. "them" debate. More a common sense look at human behavior and how people will behave/react in a system. Social engineering through taxes used as punishment and redistribution of wealth will only last for so long. Eventually, people will stand up and not take it any longer. They get tired of paying the way for those who refuse to be productive. For what it's worth, I consider myself to be more libertarian than anything else. I'll contribute my FAIR share, but leave me the F alone and stay out of my business.

Finally, I'm up for a fair debate, but don't be so condescending with your "bask in the glow of of his folksy speeches". It just makes you look like a douche.

PAXTON57

11:05 AM ET

Here's the catch....

Unfortunately, Bienart's piece falls apart over this quote: "The following year, in Reykjavik, Iceland, Reagan and Gorbachev came within a whisker of agreeing to destroy all their nuclear weapons (a deal Reagan scuttled because he would not limit "Star Wars"). Ah yeah, "Star Wars" . . . nicely tucked away in this essay so as not to disturb the thesis. The testimony from Soviet officials of their fear of America's techological prowess is substantial. It was Reagan's commitment to "Star Wars" that led to Soviet concessions. This aspect of Reagan's approach undermines Beinart's thesis.

JFACTOR

11:06 AM ET

I love it!

I just love how much time and energy Reagan's detractors are still spending 20+ years later trying to convince us that he wasn't such a great president.

2:39 PM ET

Probably not as much time and

Probably not as much time and energy as the right has invested in this age of such intellectuals as DeLay, Gingrich, Palin, Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, O'Rielly, etc, making this pathological liar and inarticulate stumblebum out to be a great president. Reagan has been rightly adjudged by most historians as being in the bottom tier of presidents. W did a good job of bringing Reagan's economical fallacies into full fruition.

3:46 PM ET

Wrong

The most recent poll of presidential scholars, taken by C-Span in February 2009, had Reagan ranked number 10.

1:26 PM ET

Supply side economics is a fraud

Today, the consensus among the economic academic community is that supply side theory and practical application are mutually exclusive. Trickle down doesn't work, simply because the have's want to keep acumulated wealth and will typically invest in that which preserves wealth. The steady decline of the middle class in both wages and net worth attests to this. All tax cuts for the wealthy do is keep them wealthy and build a wider gulf between that very small percentage that holds the largest percentage of wealth and the large percentage that gets what is left over. The bottem line: nothing really ever trickles down. John D. Rockerfeller was once asked how he became so wealthy. He responded simply: "I keep my money".

1:28 PM ET

Wow . . . Time for my AA meeting

I must be drinking too much, since I didn't realize Beinart was writing about supply side economics.

3:47 PM ET

Clarification

Pax: Apologies. I was responding to a former post that made reference to Reagan's supply side economics "policies"

MS. JONES

3:56 PM ET

Yes, as we all know the only

Yes, as we all know the only way to prosperity is the redistribution of wealth. Tax productivity, investment, savings, risk taking (entrepreneurship); and subsidize sloth, irresponsibility, and failure. After all, socialism is working so well over in Europe, and communism has met with even greater success. Spend, spend, spend! The stimulus is working! Perception is reality. It is so because Obama et al say so. May God help us all.

KUZOTZ

8:51 AM ET

Ms Jones

I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but supply side economics is exactly that. IT is wealth distribution. I think you love it when its going to the very wealthy from the very poor, but god forbid the gov't gives every poor american a 10 dollar tax rebate it must be a sign of communism. The issue now is that because the US has practiced supply side economics it is now actually starting to well fall behind the world... Atleast in the developed world. Europe isn't a shithole, a lot of east asian countries are developed too, and there are some wealthy middle eastern countries, and now african countries are starting to rapidly develop. The world has changedm and you remain a dinosaur. I would say social democracies around the world have been largely successful.. Oooo btw Singapore isn't one and it is a developed country, but they offer real incentives for ppl to go there, and not the BS that Reaganomics offers. Many will see that and say that makes absolutely no sense, why would anyone do that to their society. Of course convincing plebbs such as yourself Jones is how a crappy economic policies gains it fanatic support without any basic understanding of macro-economics, and monetary policy.

JIMTA

1:59 PM ET

Loose Cannon

I couldn't stand him when he was in office. I certainly never voted for him and I blame the economic policies he espoused and every president since him has followed for the state of our economy now. But it's time to give him credit for allowing the Soviet Union to collapse.

If any Bush or Cheney had been in power they would have provoked a crackdown by the hardliners in the Kremlin that would have removed Gorbachev from power, ended perestroika and glasnost and prolonged the existance of the Soviet Union in order to preserve the flow of tax dollars to the U.S. military-industrial complex. By the time the crackdown came it was too late.

The U.S. military-industrial complex was able to preserve their Cold War military spending anyway but that's our (especially Clinton's) fault. Reagan did his part.

ANDRIA RICHARDSON

1:59 AM ET

July 8, 2010

Ronald Reagan

Perhaps the most frequently played news clip was the excerpt from Reagan’s June 1987 speech at the Brandenburg Gate, with Reagan shouting, ‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!’ The notion that Reagan’s speech brought down the Berlin Wall is pure fiction. Crediting Reagan not only ignores Mikhail Gorbachev’s central role but also trivializes the work of ordinary East Europeans in bringing about their own liberation from decades of Communist oppression. new mexico local florists In 1989, ordinary East Germans who courageously took to the streetsto demand real democracy from the German Democratic Republic (GDR); at the same time, the reform Communist government in Hungary opened the border with Austria so that East Germans could cross into West Germany, which they did in large numbers. Gorbachev forbade Erich Honecker from opening fire on the East German people in order to preserve the faltering regime and ruled out Soviet intervention, making inevitable the collapse of the oppressive and sclerotic GDR regime. Equally fictitious are the grandiose claims that Reagan ‘brought down Soviet Communism’ and ‘ended the Cold War.’ The truth is that the Soviet Union constituted a corrupt and inefficient authoritarian regime that simply could no longer be sustained. west virginia flower delivery When Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985, he unleashed centrifugal forces that he could not control, leading to the unraveling of the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union itself in 1991. Reagan just had the ‘luck of the Irish’ (as he would call it) of being in office when the collapse of the Soviet empire began.

BLUE13326

2:12 PM ET

Actually, that Reagan was a

Actually, that Reagan was a war lover was a popular caricature of him on the left even during his presidency; you are debunking a straw man.

/bore

TALKING HEAD

5:46 PM ET

Author minimizes strategic context

A good article, but when he emphasizes Reagan's restraint in the use of military power and ascribes it to lingering Vietnam Syndrome, the author understates the key strategic fact of the Reagan presidency: the extant threat of Soviet military power.

Although the Soviet Union was faltering in the late 1980s, it retained a credible military machine, and was perceived by US analysts to be even stronger than it was.

Why was the Reagan Administration reluctant to intervene militarily in Latin America and the Middle East? Yes, because we still stung from the failure of Vietnam. But also because the Soviets didn't want us to. Had 9/11 happened during the Reagan presidency, would the US have been able to stage forces in Kazakhstan during the invation of Afghanistan? Would the US have been able to stage a hundred thousand troops on Saudi soil without triggering a wave of Soviet reinforcement of Iraq?

No. Even if Reagan had wanted to intervene on such massive scale, the geopolitical reality of the time would have stayed his hand.

7:22 PM ET

Style over substance

Reagan's true legacy -- and the sense in which he almost single-handedly created the modern presidency -- was his realization that style reigns supreme over substance. That is, so long as you gaze boldly into the camera and talk tough, no one will remember that you desperately cut back-door deals with terrorists to release hostages. Or so long as you wax poetic about the evils of big government and punishing ingenuity, no one will remember that you raised taxes and ran big deficits.

Earlier presidents may have stumbled across this principle from time to time, but not until Reagan did anybody have the chutzpah to believe it would actually work as a full-time approach to governing. Now, of course, it is standard practice.

9:40 AM ET

Wrong again...

In the early 1960s I recall a President by the name of John F. Kennedy who made sure he worked on his tan before press conferences; who invited photographers from "Life" and "Look" magazines to snap photos of his kids in the White House (unbeknowst to his wife); and who is credited with being the nation's first TV president. JFK was the first to realize "that style reigns supreme over substance." I'm sure you'll agree...

11:03 AM ET

Congratulations for missing the point

"Earlier presidents may have stumbled across this principle from time to time, but not until Reagan did anybody have the chutzpah to believe it would actually work as a full-time approach to governing."

Shouldn't you at least read what someone has written before you call it wrong?

3:01 PM ET

Spruce Goose

Ah, OK, were is the evidence that Reagan's " full time approach to governing" emphasized style over substance? What, his media savvy, popularity garnering support for the Contras? Yeah, that was a real PR/style winner. Or his support for a human life amendment - - another move guaranteed to win media accolades and boost his "style" quotient. Or his proposal in his first budget to cut domestic spending -- another PR coup. Anyone who understands the history of the American presidency should realize how foolish it is to say that Reagan was all style and no substance. You may not like the substance, but that's a different issue. And you apparently do not understand the Kennedy's sustained effort to craft an image of the ideal "family" man who was full of vigor, when in fact he was a serial philanderer who could barely get himself out of his bed due to serious illnesses.

CHIARADBR

3:09 AM ET

June 10, 2010

Fabulous

Thanks for this thoughtful and fresh take on Reagan. I think it speaks well for him.

SANTANA

9:51 AM ET

interesting

yes president reagan was more resalistic and more independent than the rest of the crew who succeeded him but he made a fundamental mistake when he allowed the right wing israel fisrt jews such as wolfowitz,pearl and abrams to penetrate and eventualy run american foriegn policy in the middle east.that decision was one of the worst he ever made.

RSAFSOZ

4:30 PM ET

intelegently

this is interesting;

Nicaragua and El Salvador weren't the only places where Reagan proved squeamish about using military force.

sikis

8:56 AM ET

poor domestic policy

I think Reagan's era signified a lot of fundamental changes in American society. This was the time period when prisons started to fill up something that never really happened at such a rapid rate in massive numbers. TOugh on crime he called it. More funding for prisons cut funding on education. These are the things many ppl talk about. Wonder why African Americans aren't really fans of Reagan. This is probably the reason why. They hated social spending unless it was to punish society in some way... I'm sorry to say but in the 1980s America faced a lot of societal problems and it was exacerbated by the REagan administration.

QUINCY

12:19 AM ET

June 26, 2010

Kuzotz...

You blame Reagan and supply side economics for the current economy. So Reagan is responsible for a poor economy 22 years after he left office? Do you then credit him with the long time expansion in the 1990's? I suppose that was Clinton's success in your mind even though Reagan's tax cuts set the stage for the investment that resulted in real economic growth (real growth meaning not the illusion of "growth" arising from overvalued tech and real estate markets). Not sure how you consider supply side (Reagan's tax cuts) income redistribution when the point of the cuts was to keep the income in the hands of those who earned it so they would reinvest. I suppose you would have everyone earn the same equal paltry sum so that no disposable/investible income exists. No excess income beyond sustinence= no investment=no jobs. Period.

12:21 AM ET

Kuzotz AND Jimta

I should have addressed my last post to both of you...different points...

WILDTHING

6:12 PM ET

June 29, 2010

collateral damage

I suppose Iraq or somewhere would feel justified to bomb the White House and kill the President's daughter... We support Iraq and Iran and some hoped they would destroy each other. I don't think Nicaragua or Honduras got off easy from the CIA covert actions or the people of Afghanistan even if it did start under Carter. The idea of star wars and weaponizing space is one of the biggest threats to planet Earth and our survival as a species.

SHAH FAHAD

5:29 AM ET

Think Again: Ronald Reagan

Reagan inherited an America still confident enough with viable military, economic and political muscle to challenge the threat emanating from Soviet Union and its allies. Though the assertion by PETER BEINART that Reagan was taken by the SHOCK and AWE of Nuclear War Movies seems a bit strange as a leader is least influenced by such, however, it was the economic 'factor' that might have motivated him to go shake HANDS with Gorbachev. Bush in some respects is a follower of BUSH albeit in a different incarnation. Obama and Reagen seems to have one common inheritance: both are following the middle line i achieving the foreign policy goals. Obama's approach towards foreign policy is based on the premise that America is to win when it has the support of the world. And Obama is getting that. In this interdependent world, USA has to follow the NORM otherwise the story of Unilateralism is to bring further mess to White House. So, Obama and Reagan are two different souls but pragmatism and astuteness commons them....

ANDY56

10:15 PM ET

July 12, 2010

Oh, yeah, he invented a new branch in economics - Is it?

When it comes to Reagan, every American turns an economist, even if he knows nothing on economics.

And what is Reaganomics?

- Spend nothing on Americans, even though they earned it.

- Spend everything abroad, even if it is war.

Then fool Americans with a Hollywood-style speech! Done.

KULAN

6:49 PM ET

July 14, 2010

Reagan was a neo liberal and

Reagan was a neo liberal and not a neo conservative like Bush,Cheney and now neo Nazis on Fox News. Obama is the ultimate heir of Reagon. He wants to restore America's role in the world and curb the excesses of extremism like Islamism and Christian Judea fascism.

Foreign Policy Magazine

Inside National Security

The Gipper wasn't the warhound his conservative followers would have you think.

BY PETER BEINART | JULY/AUGUST 2010

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