The Reagan Myth
Over the last decade, many in the GOP have created this myth of
Ronald Reagan as the savior of the United States and American way of
life after the Vietnam Era, high inflation, high unemployment and the
gas shortage. From this, he has become the embodiment of the Republican
Party. For every Republican I can think of, Ronald Reagan is their
role model.
Is their image of Ronald Reagan accurate? Unfortunately, this is a false image as history has proven…should you dare to challenge the status quo.
It is worthwhile to find out how images are created. More importantly, how false images come into being. Many Americans have grown up accepting, with little question, certain images as accurate portraits of public figures. As a historian, it is my duty to question whether or not these images are true to the original. Because of the spotlight that is centered on their every move, presidents seem to fall perfectly into this category.
Popular President?
Many in the GOP refer to Ronald Reagan as their most popular presidents in the history of the United States. If we look at Reagan in historical context, we see that he was not as popular as the myth makes him out to be. Reagan’s average approval rating during the eight years that he was in office was nothing spectacular – 52.8 percent, according to Gallup. Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and George H.W. Bush all have higher average approval ratings; yet, they are not discussed as candidates for Mount Rushmore. It should also be noted that at the height of the Iran-Contra scandal, one third of the American people wanted him to resign.
Reaganomics was Good?
It has also been argued that he was a tax cutter, which is both true and false depending on which side of the fence you are on. In 1981, he signed the Kemp-Roth Tax Cut, otherwise known as the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981. This would be the first step in Reagan’s presidency in bringing the top tax rate down from 70%, which it had been when he took office. By the end of his presidency, the top tax rate was 28%. On the other hand, he would eventually raise taxes on the middle class in 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986 and 1987. Yep, the middle class got screwed. In fact, I highly doubt you will find anyone in the middle class that enjoyed paying the tax rate during the Reagan Years over the Carter years. This would become known as Reaganomics.
According to the GOP, Reaganomics seems to be the only economic model that works. They feel, just as Ronald Reagan felt, that if you cut the taxes for the rich and corporations, along with deregulating the financial sector, the wealth would “trickle down” to the rest of the American people. The keyword there is “trickle”. The wealth would not rain down on the rest of American society. In this case, very little, if any had trickled down to middle and low income Americans. Instead, it led to a massive transfer of wealth to the top percent of Americans, as well as a series of dangerous and increasing budget deficits.
Anytime this nation has seen a transfer of wealth to the top percent of Americans and deregulation of the financial sector, it always leads to crisis. President Harding did this in 1921 with his tax cuts, which was continued by Calvin Coolidge, and ultimately led to the housing market collapse of 1926, followed by the Stock Market Crash of 1929.
Toward the end of his presidency, Herbert Hoover signed the Revenue Act of 1932, which raised the income tax on highest incomes from 25% to 63%. When FDR took office, he began the New Deal, which was a series of economic programs designed to respond to the Great Depression. It continued to raise the income tax on the highest incomes, as well as regulate the financial sector, with hopes of preventing a repeat depression.
After Reagan had enacted his tax cuts for the top tax rate, as well as deregulating the financial sector, there was a mini crash of the stock market in 1987, the savings and loan crisis, unemployment was at 7% by the end of the his Administration and one third of Americans were living below the poverty line.
Reaganomics dramatically increased the national deficit, tripling it in size during his time in office. When he took office it was $1 trillion, which was the sum total of all debt after Andrew Jackson had paid it off in 1835. This includes all debt from the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Basically, it took the United States from 1836 until 1980 or more than 140 years to accrue a national debt of $1 trillion. By the time he left office, the national debt was $3.5 trillion.
If you feel that having uncontrolled deficits are ok, then maybe you feel good about Ronald Reagan. However, if you run a big deficit, it will catch up to you. Don’t you think we are seeing that now? It doesn’t matter if he made Americans feel good about being American. At the end of the day, can this nation pay its bills? In his farewell address, he even states that the size of the deficit was his biggest regret.
George H.W. Bush had called this policy “Voodoo Economics”, and rightfully so by arguing we cannot cut taxes on your highest taxpayers, coupled with a rise in government spending and somehow feel that we will come out ahead.
Reducing the Size of the Federal Government?
Many Republican politicians all talk about how they want to reduce the size of the federal government the same way Ronald Reagan did. The only problem is, the fact that he shrank the federal government is untrue. During his eight years in office, the federal government actually grew.
During his 1981 inauguration, Reagan declared “in the present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem”. However, Reagan would increase the size of the federal government. The number of federal employees grew from 2.8 million to 3 million under Reagan, in large part because of his buildup at the Pentagon. It should also be noted that during his campaign, he pledged to do away with the Department of Energy and the Department of Education. Not only did he not get rid of those agencies, but he added the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The only area where he shrank the federal government was in the financial sector. As previously stated, he rolled back much legislation from the New Deal. For example, the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act, signed by Ronald Reagan in 1982, basically ended New Deal restrictions on mortgage lending. This limited the ability of families to buy homes without putting down a significant down payment.
He Won the Cold War?
Perhaps the most persistent myth that has developed about Ronald Reagan was that he won the Cold War. However, anyone attempting to review the history of the United States and the Soviet Union after World War II can easily see how Ronald Reagan did not win the Cold War.
George F. Kennan, considered to be the father of the Containment Theory, had stated “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”.
James Baker, former Chief of Staff to Ronald Reagan, had stated “the Cold War was won by a succession of Republican and Democratic presidents over the course of 40 years that were able to stay the course and counter the expansionist aims of the Soviet Union”.
I believe that he hastened the end of the Cold War, which was inevitable, with the introduction of the SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) program, which was actually a pie in the sky; yet the Soviets took it seriously and the large amount of defense spending. On the other side of that, I also believe that Mikhail Gorbachev assisted in the speed up with the introduction of Perestroika, which brought about a restructuring of the Soviet political and economic systems.
Former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who was the Vice-Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had stated “For a quarter century, they [the CIA] told the President everything there was to know about the Soviet Union, excepting the fact that it was collapsing [due to a bad economy]. They missed that detail”. To say that Ronald Reagan won the Cold War is historically inaccurate.
Although Ronald Reagan was a charismatic President and displayed the image of the “shoot from the hip” politician, many in the GOP forget that Ronald Reagan was an actor and that the tough talk and political rhetoric was all done in front of the cameras. He used strong words and a hard stance when discussing the hostages in Lebanon. Yet, he traded arms to Iran, whom had a strong influence in Lebanon, for their release. Otherwise known as the Iran-Contra Affair.
To properly critique Ronald Reagan as a president, we must see beyond the myth that has been created and realize the damage that his economic policies have done to the United States. With a balanced look at the past, we can understand that what the GOP has done to create this myth and false image, is nothing more than historical revisionism.
Is their image of Ronald Reagan accurate? Unfortunately, this is a false image as history has proven…should you dare to challenge the status quo.
It is worthwhile to find out how images are created. More importantly, how false images come into being. Many Americans have grown up accepting, with little question, certain images as accurate portraits of public figures. As a historian, it is my duty to question whether or not these images are true to the original. Because of the spotlight that is centered on their every move, presidents seem to fall perfectly into this category.
Popular President?
Many in the GOP refer to Ronald Reagan as their most popular presidents in the history of the United States. If we look at Reagan in historical context, we see that he was not as popular as the myth makes him out to be. Reagan’s average approval rating during the eight years that he was in office was nothing spectacular – 52.8 percent, according to Gallup. Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and George H.W. Bush all have higher average approval ratings; yet, they are not discussed as candidates for Mount Rushmore. It should also be noted that at the height of the Iran-Contra scandal, one third of the American people wanted him to resign.
Reaganomics was Good?
It has also been argued that he was a tax cutter, which is both true and false depending on which side of the fence you are on. In 1981, he signed the Kemp-Roth Tax Cut, otherwise known as the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981. This would be the first step in Reagan’s presidency in bringing the top tax rate down from 70%, which it had been when he took office. By the end of his presidency, the top tax rate was 28%. On the other hand, he would eventually raise taxes on the middle class in 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986 and 1987. Yep, the middle class got screwed. In fact, I highly doubt you will find anyone in the middle class that enjoyed paying the tax rate during the Reagan Years over the Carter years. This would become known as Reaganomics.
According to the GOP, Reaganomics seems to be the only economic model that works. They feel, just as Ronald Reagan felt, that if you cut the taxes for the rich and corporations, along with deregulating the financial sector, the wealth would “trickle down” to the rest of the American people. The keyword there is “trickle”. The wealth would not rain down on the rest of American society. In this case, very little, if any had trickled down to middle and low income Americans. Instead, it led to a massive transfer of wealth to the top percent of Americans, as well as a series of dangerous and increasing budget deficits.
Anytime this nation has seen a transfer of wealth to the top percent of Americans and deregulation of the financial sector, it always leads to crisis. President Harding did this in 1921 with his tax cuts, which was continued by Calvin Coolidge, and ultimately led to the housing market collapse of 1926, followed by the Stock Market Crash of 1929.
Toward the end of his presidency, Herbert Hoover signed the Revenue Act of 1932, which raised the income tax on highest incomes from 25% to 63%. When FDR took office, he began the New Deal, which was a series of economic programs designed to respond to the Great Depression. It continued to raise the income tax on the highest incomes, as well as regulate the financial sector, with hopes of preventing a repeat depression.
After Reagan had enacted his tax cuts for the top tax rate, as well as deregulating the financial sector, there was a mini crash of the stock market in 1987, the savings and loan crisis, unemployment was at 7% by the end of the his Administration and one third of Americans were living below the poverty line.
Reaganomics dramatically increased the national deficit, tripling it in size during his time in office. When he took office it was $1 trillion, which was the sum total of all debt after Andrew Jackson had paid it off in 1835. This includes all debt from the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Basically, it took the United States from 1836 until 1980 or more than 140 years to accrue a national debt of $1 trillion. By the time he left office, the national debt was $3.5 trillion.
If you feel that having uncontrolled deficits are ok, then maybe you feel good about Ronald Reagan. However, if you run a big deficit, it will catch up to you. Don’t you think we are seeing that now? It doesn’t matter if he made Americans feel good about being American. At the end of the day, can this nation pay its bills? In his farewell address, he even states that the size of the deficit was his biggest regret.
George H.W. Bush had called this policy “Voodoo Economics”, and rightfully so by arguing we cannot cut taxes on your highest taxpayers, coupled with a rise in government spending and somehow feel that we will come out ahead.
Reducing the Size of the Federal Government?
Many Republican politicians all talk about how they want to reduce the size of the federal government the same way Ronald Reagan did. The only problem is, the fact that he shrank the federal government is untrue. During his eight years in office, the federal government actually grew.
During his 1981 inauguration, Reagan declared “in the present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem”. However, Reagan would increase the size of the federal government. The number of federal employees grew from 2.8 million to 3 million under Reagan, in large part because of his buildup at the Pentagon. It should also be noted that during his campaign, he pledged to do away with the Department of Energy and the Department of Education. Not only did he not get rid of those agencies, but he added the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The only area where he shrank the federal government was in the financial sector. As previously stated, he rolled back much legislation from the New Deal. For example, the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act, signed by Ronald Reagan in 1982, basically ended New Deal restrictions on mortgage lending. This limited the ability of families to buy homes without putting down a significant down payment.
He Won the Cold War?
Perhaps the most persistent myth that has developed about Ronald Reagan was that he won the Cold War. However, anyone attempting to review the history of the United States and the Soviet Union after World War II can easily see how Ronald Reagan did not win the Cold War.
George F. Kennan, considered to be the father of the Containment Theory, had stated “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”.
James Baker, former Chief of Staff to Ronald Reagan, had stated “the Cold War was won by a succession of Republican and Democratic presidents over the course of 40 years that were able to stay the course and counter the expansionist aims of the Soviet Union”.
I believe that he hastened the end of the Cold War, which was inevitable, with the introduction of the SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) program, which was actually a pie in the sky; yet the Soviets took it seriously and the large amount of defense spending. On the other side of that, I also believe that Mikhail Gorbachev assisted in the speed up with the introduction of Perestroika, which brought about a restructuring of the Soviet political and economic systems.
Former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who was the Vice-Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had stated “For a quarter century, they [the CIA] told the President everything there was to know about the Soviet Union, excepting the fact that it was collapsing [due to a bad economy]. They missed that detail”. To say that Ronald Reagan won the Cold War is historically inaccurate.
Although Ronald Reagan was a charismatic President and displayed the image of the “shoot from the hip” politician, many in the GOP forget that Ronald Reagan was an actor and that the tough talk and political rhetoric was all done in front of the cameras. He used strong words and a hard stance when discussing the hostages in Lebanon. Yet, he traded arms to Iran, whom had a strong influence in Lebanon, for their release. Otherwise known as the Iran-Contra Affair.
To properly critique Ronald Reagan as a president, we must see beyond the myth that has been created and realize the damage that his economic policies have done to the United States. With a balanced look at the past, we can understand that what the GOP has done to create this myth and false image, is nothing more than historical revisionism.
Comments
Post a Comment