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Title: Ronald Reagan Myth Doesn't Square with Reality (Editors Note this article is propaganda and that Ronald Reagan was the greatest president of the 20th century
Source:
cbsnews.com
URL Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20030729-503544.html
Published: Feb 4, 2011
Author: Brian Montopoli
Post Date: 2011-02-04 15:48:54 by Ferret Mike
Keywords: None
Views: 7282
Comments: 9
About 10,000 people will gather this weekend at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California to honor what would have been the 100th birthday of former President Ronald Reagan -- among them Dick Cheney, the Beach Boys and Sarah Palin.
Reagan, who served as president from 1981 -1989 and died in 2004 at the age of 93, is widely considered the patron saint of conservatives; ask a prominent conservative their hero, and odds are they'll point to the Gipper. (The adulation is so widespread that candidates at a debate last month among the candidates to be RNC chairman were asked their hero - "aside from President Reagan.")
Reagan is perhaps most often invoked by those who cast him as having held the line against tax increases. Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, for example, often points to Reagan when calling for lower taxes and spending cuts; he says, by contrast, "tax hikes are what politicians do when they don't have the determination or the competence to govern." Conservatives also hail Reagan as a budget cutter willing to make hard choices to keep spending in line.
It's certainly true that Reagan entered office in 1980 as a full-throated conservative vowing to cut both spending and taxes. And he quickly followed through on part of that promise, passing a major reduction in marginal tax rates. (According to author Lou Cannon, the top marginal rate fell from 70 percent when he came into office to 28 percent when he left.)
But following his party's losses in the 1982 election, Reagan largely backed off his efforts at spending cuts even as he continued to offer the small-government rhetoric that helped get him elected. In fact, he went in the opposite direction: His creation of the department of veterans affairs contributed to an increase in the federal workforce of more than 60,000 people during his presidency.
And while Reagan somewhat slowed the marginal rate of growth in the budget, it continued to increase during his time in office. So did the debt, skyrocketing from $700 billion to $3 trillion. Then there's the fact that after first pushing to cut Social Security benefits - and being stymied by Congress - Reagan in 1983 agreed to a $165 billion bailout of the program. He also massively expanded the Pentagon budget.
Meanwhile, following that initial tax cut, Reagan actually ended up raising taxes - eleven times. That's according to former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson, a longtime Reagan friend who co-chaired President Obama's fiscal commission that last year offered a deficit reduction proposal.
"Ronald Reagan was never afraid to raise taxes," historian Douglas Brinkley, who edited Reagan's diaries, told NPR. "He knew that it was necessary at times. And so there's a false mythology out there about Reagan as this conservative president who came in and just cut taxes and trimmed federal spending in a dramatic way. It didn't happen that way. It's false."
It's important to note that Reagan's tax increases did not wipe out the effects of that initial tax cut. But they did eat up about half of it. And as Peter Beinart points out, the 1983 payroll tax hike went to pay for Social Security and Medicare. ("Reagan raised taxes to pay for government-run health care," Beinart writes.) Reagan also raised the gas tax and signed the largest corporate tax increase in history, an act Joshua Green writes would be "utterly unimaginable for any conservative to support today."
Reagan was not happy about raising taxes or expanding government, and we certainly shouldn't forget that he had to work within the constraints placed upon him by a non-compliant Congress. But that doesn't change the fact that Reagan both increased spending and, after the initial cut, showed a willingness to raise taxes - exactly the sort of policy prescriptions so widely condemned by today's Reagan-reverent conservatives.
These facts have largely been lost as the right has enshrined Reagan as its patron saint, and they may fade further amid the speeches at this weekend's centennial celebration. But the reality is that Reagan was a president who held firm beliefs but was also willing to work with his ideological opponents. And that's the sort of thing that doesn't much lend itself to mythmaking.
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#1. To: All, A K A Stone (#0)
Hey, A K A Queeg, stop being an infant. If you have rebuttal, post it. You try the quick, immature and bully way by altering a posting. You are forced to do this because you have not the brains nor the verbal skills to articulate argument. I thought this was supposed to be a forum, not a fucking ant farm for you to shake. You are an asshole.
Stone; I have no time reading posts from an idiot like you anyway, on to the bozo you go.
Never swear "allegiance" to anything other than the 'right to change your mind'!
Don't disrespec the gipper on his birthday with propaganda.
Back to making up fake titles again, eh Stone?
The moron speaks out his ass about a well researched news piece that does what news is supposed to do; clear up myths and lies built up to make Reagan sound better that he was. Stone can't handle the truth. Stone has no respect for people participating on his board. I dare A K A Qweeg to do some checking of the facts in the article and he will find this to be so. Propaganda is information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc. This is a NEWS ARTICLE. It came out because idiots like A K A Queeg spread false mythological propaganda building up Reagan far more than he deserved. If this dummy wants to honor this person, he might start by being truthful. Instead of propagating the lies. He also might consider letting his kids run the forum. Some maturity at the healm of it would be a welcome change.
What's really dumb for dumbshit's childish acts is it destroyed the one last leap of faith I had in this place. It also makes his credibility look like shit. It gets posted about all over a thread that would likely had scrolled through the news column with at best one or two posts. People read the article and they are going to be exposed to it far more than if he had not meddled with an article posting.
"You can't handle the truth!!!!"
HOOAH!! I was wondering if anyone would get my reference. ;-D (I know this Army cry of affirmation is puzzling to the Stoned one. Stonie, HOOAH is the honetic spelling of the military acronym HUA, which stands for "Heard Understood Acknowledged.") Oh and Stone, I can be very cutting talking about Reagan. I already was being kind. I stuck to the truth in posting articles. I left out all the editorial comments I have perfected in fifteen years of posting that cleverly cut Reagan down. I felt it inappropriate on his birthday. And Stone, I dislike Reagan, but I was still very upset when he was shot on my birthday. And I sent the White House a card with my best wishes and speedy recovery. You Putz.
#2. To: All (#0)
(Edited)
#3. To: Ferret Mike, *More Made Up Article Titles* (#0)
#4. To: Ferret Mike (#1)
#5. To: A K A Stone (#4)
#6. To: Skip Intro, A K A Stone (#5)
(Edited)
#7. To: Brian S (#3)
#8. To: Skip Intro (#5)
#9. To: Bartcoprules, A K A Stone (#8)
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