# What did Reagan effect? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 19, 2014, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-reagan-effect/681695 "2014-02-19T07:48:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-reagan-effect/681695/1 "2014-02-19T07:48:12Z")
I originally wanted to post this in GQ, in order to constrain the bullshit from both sides, but I figured it would last about 34 minutes before getting moved here. I myself am highly opinionated on the issue, but I recognize that real information is heavily tinted by the source, be it Heritage or CEPR or whatever. My question is whether it is possible to find valid information about the real short and long term effects of Reagan Administration policies. I was following a discussion elsewhere, and it was little more than “Morning in America” vs. “President 666”. Charts and stats being flung about with abandon, with little regard to much other than numbers that made him look good or numbers that made him look bad (tweak the basis of a graph just so and a goat becomes a hero – statistics are very hard to trust). So what reliable, unbiased information can be had about the long term economic and social outcomes that the Reagan Administration can reasonably be given credit/blame for? And s it possible to look into a question like this without descending into a polemic froth? ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-reagan-effect/681695/2 "2014-02-19T10:25:30Z")
You seem to assume that it was Reagan that led the Reagan administration. The powers that run that administration actually ran three administrations. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-reagan-effect/681695/3 "2014-02-19T10:36:05Z")
_grits teeth_ ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-reagan-effect/681695/4 "2014-02-19T14:33:11Z")
He didn’t effect anything. He affected some things though. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-reagan-effect/681695/5 "2014-02-19T14:36:31Z")
He _effected_ a change in the underlying political structure of the US by selling people on economic theories that Americans had largely abandoned in the 1930s. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-reagan-effect/681695/6 "2014-02-19T15:28:26Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > You seem to assume that it was Reagan that led the Reagan administration. > The powers that run that administration actually ran three administrations. I am aware that the man himself was something of a stooge, a figurehead for a some-sort-of _Nostra_, but many people view him as a heroic leader who rescued the country from a “Carter malaise”. In that respect, I use “Reagan”, rightly or wrongly, to mean the entire group that used him as cover. > [@Leaper](#): > > _grits teeth_ > [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > He didn’t effect anything. He affected some things though. Yes, “effect” is the word I meant to use, I do know the difference. “Affecting” things is almost trivial. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-reagan-effect/681695/7 "2014-02-19T15:56:55Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > You seem to assume that it was Reagan that led the Reagan administration. > The powers that run that administration actually ran three administrations. Please name them. ---
**Author:** ![tapu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@tapu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tapu)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-reagan-effect/681695/8 "2014-02-19T16:13:21Z")
He used his very amiable affect to change public perception of its personal relationship with the US President. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-reagan-effect/681695/9 "2014-02-19T17:05:31Z")
Without taking a pro- or anti- position, I’ll just say I’m confused by what you’re looking for. You want “reliable, unbiased information…about the long term economic and social outcomes” without statistics, charts, or graphs? Isn’t social and particularly economic information without statistics just…opinion? ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-reagan-effect/681695/10 "2014-02-19T17:19:08Z")
He was the anti-Nixon IMFO (In my foreigner’s opinion) from what I can tell. He was style over substance unlike Nixon. He could with his looks and charm get away with anything, even Iran-Contra. He made a hash of economics which will probably be his ultimate legacy when the final judgement is entered. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-reagan-effect/681695/11 "2014-02-19T17:42:05Z")
Historians rank Reagan well above average among Presidents for leadership qualities, but below average for qualifications and quality of appointments, ending up in the middle of the pack overall. ([Cite,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States) showing that his “aggregate ranking” is boosted by Wall Street Journal surveys.) The Nixon Administration led to political disillusionment in America. That, economic “stagflation”, the Iran hostage crisis, and perceived ineffectiveness of Jimmy Carter meant that America was ready for a charismatic leader such as it hadn’t seen since JFK. Reagan was seen to fulfill that role. His popularity led Congress and the public to adopt his agenda, leading to new directions for America, especially with his “government is not the solution to our problem; _government is the problem_” philosophy. (“Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.”) There’s no doubt that deregulation led by Reagan effected great change in America; whether good or bad may be debatable. Reagan is widely credited with hastening the downfall of the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain. Whether this is valid or not, I don’t know, but it is true that there were no _major_ foreign policy debacles on Reagan’s watch. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-reagan-effect/681695/12 "2014-02-19T17:43:54Z")
You don’t count Iran-Contra as a foreign policy debacle? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-reagan-effect/681695/13 "2014-02-19T17:46:24Z")
[QUOTE=Fpr You] And s it possible to look into a question like this without descending into a polemic froth? [/QUOTE] Not on the SDMB. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![nevadaexile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb8c5e/32.png) [@nevadaexile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevadaexile)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-reagan-effect/681695/14 "2014-02-19T17:54:45Z")
Reagan had a net negative effect upon: [ol] [li] **American politics** - This country would likely be far more racial progressive now than it is without Reagan and his “Welfare Queens” election politics[/li][li] **Healthcare** - Reagan ignored AIDS at a time when the US could have gotten it under control. Had he shown an iota of leadership concerning the disease then it’s likely that hundreds of thousands of Americans would now still be alive.[/li][li] **US/Latin American relations** - Did Reagan have a policy on this area other than “give guns to the Contras?” If he did, he sure kept it hidden for eight years.[/li][li] **Equal rights** - For man clearly marching to the tune of his own wife’s drum, Reagan held surprisingly archaic views upon women’s place in our society. As with race, a period without Reagan as President probably would have been more benifical for American women.[/li][/ol] Frankly, the entire eight year Reagan term (and its George H.W. sequel) were a crapfest for the country. A few people did extremely well, some got by, and the remainder got screwed. Not much of a legacy. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-reagan-effect/681695/15 "2014-02-19T18:17:58Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > You don’t count Iran-Contra as a foreign policy debacle? Cuban missile crisis, Vietnam War, allowing Saddam to misread U.S. views and invade Kuwait, perhaps encouraging Pakistan-Taliban alliance – those were _major_ debacles, and I did write “major.” Without defending U.S. imperialism or Reagan foreign policy, if Iran-Contra was the most significant minor foreign policy debacle in those eight years, he was spectactularly successful. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-reagan-effect/681695/16 "2014-02-19T18:26:43Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Without taking a pro- or anti- position, I’ll just say I’m confused by what you’re looking for. You want “reliable, unbiased information…about the long term economic and social outcomes” without statistics, charts, or graphs? > > Isn’t social and particularly economic information without statistics just…opinion? You can do all kinds of prestidigitation with statistics. **Forbes** , for instance, can show that [Carter had a better job creation record than Reagan](http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2012/11/02/the-real-story-of-job-creation/). But job creation is kind of an incomplete statistic. What if 90% of those jobs are part-time? Does the creation of part-time jobs obscure those that are created to replace people moving to full-time? How can one qualitatively analyze a stat like this? I mean, sure, you can look at figures, but if the numbers become the end-all, you tend to lose sight of what they actually mean. Maybe humanity really is not more important than economics, but I tend to think there has to be some sort of balance in the analysis of socio-economic issues. Any single chart is just a snapshot through a peephole. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-reagan-effect/681695/17 "2014-02-19T18:57:50Z")
> [@For You](#): > > **What did Reagan effect?** [_The Reagan Effect:_](http://www.amazon.com/The-Reagan-Effect-Presidential-Leadership/dp/0700609512) > [@](#): > > Transcending ideological bias, Sloan provides an utterly convincing history of the Reagan Revolution. He reveals Reagan to be a detached and uninformed leader who adopted a supply-side economics that did not work, who championed a conservative ideology that he regularly violated, who accelerated growing inequality without moral qualm, and who avoided hard choices in the mistaken belief that none was necessary. Nonetheless, Sloan lucidly argues, Reagan contributed significantly to the low inflation and revived competitiveness that delivered the remarkable prosperity of the past fifteen years. But see also [_Tear Down This Myth._](http://www.amazon.com/Tear-Down-This-Myth-Bunch-ebook/dp/B001QIGZHC/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1392836227&sr=1-1&keywords=tear+down+this+myth) > [@](#): > > In this provocative new book, award-winning political journalist Will Bunch unravels the story of how a right-wing cabal hijacked the mixed legacy of Ronald Reagan, a personally popular but hugely divisive 1980s president, and turned him into a bronze icon to revive their fading ideology. They succeeded to the point where all the GOP candidates for president in 2008 scurried to claim his mantle, no matter how preposterous the fit. > > With clear eyes and an ever-present wit, Bunch reveals the truth about the Ronald Reagan legacy, including the following: > > •Despite the idolatry of the last fifteen years, Reagan’s average popularity as president was only, well, average, lower than that of a half-dozen modern presidents. More important, while he was in office, a majority of Americans opposed most of his policies and by 1988 felt strongly that the nation was on the wrong track. Reagan’s 1981 tax cut, weighted heavily toward the rich, did not cause the economic recovery of the 1980s. It was fueled instead by dropping oil prices, the normal business cycle, and the tight fiscal policies of the chairman of the Federal Reserve appointed by Jimmy Carter. Reagan’s tax cut did, however, help usher in the deregulated modern era of CEO and Wall Street greed. > > •Most historians agree that Reagan’s waste-ridden military buildup didn’t actually “win the Cold War.” And Reagan mythmakers ignore his real contributions – his willingness to talk to his Soviet adversaries, his genuine desire to eliminate nuclear weapons, and the surprising role of a “liberal” Hollywood-produced TV movie. > > •George H. W. Bush’s and Bill Clinton’s rolling back of Reaganomics during the 1990s spurred a decade of peace and prosperity as well as the reactionary campaign to pump up the myth of Ronald Reagan and restore right-wing hegemony over Washington. This effort has led to war, bankrupt energy policies, and coming generations of debt. > > With masterful insight, Bunch exposes this dangerous effort to reshape America’s future by rewriting its past. As the Obama administration charts its course, he argues, it should do so unencumbered by the dead weight of misplaced and unearned reverence. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-reagan-effect/681695/18 "2014-02-19T19:11:16Z")
> [@For You](#): > > You can do all kinds of prestidigitation with statistics. **Forbes** , for instance, can show that [Carter had a better job creation record than Reagan](http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2012/11/02/the-real-story-of-job-creation/). But job creation is kind of an incomplete statistic. What if 90% of those jobs are part-time? Does the creation of part-time jobs obscure those that are created to replace people moving to full-time? How can one qualitatively analyze a stat like this? That cite is somewhat of a False Dichotomy in the way it splits the stats up in the charts by months. It seems to give an impression that things were actually better under Carter which is nonsense. Your comment has merits, however. I vividly remember in the late 70’s 300 adults showing up to apply for a part-time job at the Dairy Queen because their unemployment benefits ran out. It is impossible for me to judge Reagan without remembering the disaster of the previous administration. Carter meant well but was completely inept at everything involved with being President. There was little Reagan could have done that would have made very many long for the Carter years. ---
**Author:** ![nevadaexile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb8c5e/32.png) [@nevadaexile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevadaexile)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-reagan-effect/681695/19 "2014-02-19T19:18:14Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > That cite is somewhat of a False Dichotomy in the way it splits the stats up in the charts by months. It seems to give an impression that things were actually better under Carter which is nonsense. Your comment has merits, however. I vividly remember in the late 70’s 300 adults showing up to apply for a part-time job at the Dairy Queen because their unemployment benefits ran out. > > It is impossible for me to judge Reagan without remembering the disaster of the previous administration. Carter meant well but was completely inept at everything involved with being President. There was little Reagan could have done that would have made very many long for the Carter years. I think that: [ol] [li]The Camp David Accords[/li][li]The peaceful transfer of the Panama Canal[/li][li]The change in US foreign policy emphasis towards human rights[/li][li]The creation of the Department of Energy and the streamlining of federal energy policies[/li][li]The behind teh scene nogotiating which led to the release of the US hostages held by Iran.[/li][/ol] Among many other things, make your last paragraph more a statement of opinion than of historical fact. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-reagan-effect/681695/20 "2014-02-19T20:16:30Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > Carter meant well but was completely inept at everything involved with being President. He was a good diplomat. Brought Israel and Egypt together. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-reagan-effect/681695.md?page=2)