Indeed, but that set seems not to include the one I described. It is even possible that I am (mis)remembering as a still photo what was actually a short video segment taken at the same time as the linked pics. That may well be the case if for no other reason than it’s easier to pick up on “mocking” from a video than it is from a still picture.
BTW, in the set of linked pictures, the first one shows what seems to be a cleric talking to the others. It was either him or someone attired and bearded in a similar way who did the “picking” (in another photo or, possibly, a video).
In abundance. I have nothing else good to say about Reagan but he could rally people to a cause (even a stupid and pointless cause) better than any other President in my lifetime and I believe that leadership is the most important quality in a president. If only he had used his powers for good
To be sure. But the increase came mostly in the form of a significant buildup of the security and defense-related agencies. Many of the domestic agencies were streamlined and forced to become more accountable. HUD, DOC, USDA, DOE, DOT, USDI, OSHA, EPA, REA and others. There is no question that cutting agency budgets did more harm than good, in some cases. Many of the federal agencies were left unable to effectively perform their mission. But, after the initial pain, many were also forced to streamline their proceedures, to rely more on input from local entities, to reduce overlapping proceedures with states. Certain regulatory and asset management responsibilities were turned over to the states along with block grants to assist them.
Again, I would stress that the results were definitely mixed, but balance this with the fact that at the time we had a cumbersome federal bureaucracy that had become scarcely more efficient than the one that brought down the Soviet system.
SS
If you know any Iranians, KarlGauss, try calling them “Arabs”. See what happens.
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Reagan was a couragious president that stopped the Soviet Union. His Star War hoax, scared the soviets making theirs budget to reach the limits.
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What broke the Soviet’s was the decline of the price of oil and a failing, stagnant economy. The irony, of course, is that president Carter’s energy policy along with United States transitioning from a manufacturing to a service economy resulted in precipitous drop in oil consumption and prices. Which Reagan benefited from.
Russian ex pats have told me that “Star Wars” aspect wasn’t as big a deal to them as it was made out to be here. For them, it was Chernobyl was the breaking point, along with the rise of Gorbachev. Had the price of oil remained as it had in the late 70’s, the Soviets might have held on much longer.
Reagan’s willingness to eliminate nuclear weapons is something I give him very high marks on; OTOH, he didn’t seem all that concerned about nuclear proliferation outside of the Soviet Union. North Korea, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq were all chipping away at building the Bomb.
Reagan stood behind Volker as he cut the money supply. This stopped the inflation of the 70’s and set the stage for the great economic boom that followed. Volker would not have done this without Reagan’s support and willingness to endure one of the worst recessions since the great depression.
Reagan worked with Congress to cut taxes. When he took office top marginal were at 50% and at 70% for investment income. When he left they were at 28%. This huge tax cut spurred the economy into a boom that made the US significantly richer than most other countries in the world.
Reagan fired the striking air traffic controllers. He showed that the laws applied to everyone and that striking against public safety would not be tolerated.
His foreign policy was to win the cold war. His frank talk of the evils of communism let the brave souls struggling against the communism and the Soviet Union around the world know that they were not alone. He increased the military budget so the USSR would have to increase its and he knew they were already straining to bear the military budget they had. He worked with the Saudis to keep the price of oil low to lower the value of one of the Soviet’s main exports. He supported the Contras in Nicaragua and the mujahadeen in Afghanistan to drain the Soviet’s money and morale. He worked clandestinely to help the Solidarity movement in Poland. His spies were able to sabotage a pipeline that was vital to Soviet oil supplies. In response to Reagan the Soviets appointed Gorbachev to reform communism and try to keep up with Reagan. Gorbachev unleased openness which eventually resulted in the rise of Boris Yeltsin and the fall of the USSR. This fall is the single greatest victory for human dignity and freedom in my lifetime. The end of the cold war brought an end to the single greatest manmade threat to human existence. His confidence and focus helped achieve this at a time when most experts thought it was impossible.
That is just off the top of my head, I am sure I could come up with more if I researched a little.
…I’m disappointed in this thread. I thought surely there would be more concrete things. He cut taxes. Basically?.. that’s what he did. That’s why he’s so beloved by the Right?
Reagan also grew the Federal government by over 60 000 employees, the deficit and national debt almost tripled under his presidency, he raised taxes most years of his presidency (including the biggest peacetime tax rise in history), transferring the tax burden from high to low/middle incomes.
He ran away from terrorism in the Middle East, ordering the Marines to run away from Arab terrorist groups and bringing them back to America, he signed an amnesty for millions of illegal aliens, he condemned Israel for bombing Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor, he supported Saddam, he engaged in anti-market currency manipulation and protectionism of American goods instead of advocating free trade, appointed a couple of pro-abortion judges to the Supreme Court…
It’s hard to understand why righties like the guy so much.
Where was this boom you speak of? The average rate of GDP growth per US post-war president is 3.5%. Economic growth during the Reagan years was 3.5%.
Capitalism won the cold war. Reagan happened to be prez when it happened but it was a decades-long process, actually speeded up at the end by Jimmy Carter making a deal with the Saudis for them to flood the market with oil, put the price under $10 a barrel and thus cripple the Soviet Union’s economy which relied on hard currency from oil exports. That and the First Soviet reformer (Gorbachov) taking power in 1984.
Economic growth was 3.2% under Reagan, it was 2.8% in the eight years previous and 2.1% in the eight years after. In the years after 1973 economic growth has slowed everywhere throughout the west. The US in Reagan’s time grew faster than Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland. The only major European country to grow faster was the UK under Thatcher. This despite the US being richer than all of those countries except Switzerland .
It may be coincidence that the USSR collapsed right after a president who policy was focused on making it collapse. As you say capitalism’s inherent superiority to communism is what made the USSR susceptible to collapse. But Cuba is still communist, as is North Korea and nominally China, yet all of these regimes survive. Things are so complicated that it is hard to seperate causes and effects,yet the fact remains that Reagan had a plan to end the Soviet Union and executed it. One year after the end of the plan the Soviet Union ended.
A quick google gives me this. The guy is a currency expert and sves me the job of buggering about with BEA interactive NIPA tables. He agrees with me. As you can see Ron was dead on average for economic growth but out on his own when it comes to national debt, budget deficits and of course creating the dynamic which led to the current fiscal situation.
Ron’s plan, whatever it was, had no effect on Gorbachov being elected General Secretary of the USSR Communist Party or Jimmy Carter doing a deal with the Saudis, or the previous decades of capitalist economic growth versus Communist growth. These three things brought the end of the cold war, not some plan.
EDIT:
Reagan provided over the worst recession in 45 years during his first two years. This was because he stood with Volker to end inflaton. Despite this recession economic growth during his term averaged more than Carter and Clinton. Your cite provides evidence for Reagan’s greatness.
Because the fall of the Soviet Union was such a complex event, opinions will differ as to how much a role Reagan had in it. Here is the opinion of someone who was there Lech Walesahttp://www.tommyduggan.com/VP070204lech.html
Some people seem to feel that Reagan was somehow the first President to denounce communism.
Hasn’t opposition to communism been a pretty standard policy for every President from Wilson onwards? Was there something objectively different about Reagan’s opposition?
And I understand that some people give Reagan credit for having a master plan to end communism in the Soviet Union. He’d build up a big American military and the Soviets would match it. The cost of that big military would cause the collapse of the Soviet government.
But can anyone provide a cite that this was a plan? I was there back in the eighties. Nobody in the Reagan administration was claiming the intent of the military buildup was to trigger a Soviet collapse. Everyone was saying we needed a strong military because the Soviet Union was a strong enemy and we’d be fighting them for years to come - the exact opposite of what turned out to be the case.
