Does Reagan get too much credit?

[m4567]

What people think of as the "Reagan era" really started under Carter. He was the first post-FDR president to seriously push back against "big government." The peak of the "Reagan era" (from a legislation standpoint) was 1994-2001. The defeat of Universal healthcare. Republican takeover of congress. The welfare system gutted. DOMA. Glass-Steagall repealed. A budget surplus. And Bush's historic tax cuts.

[CEO Mindset]

yes. bill clinton did a good 90% of what people into consie stuff credit reagan for with the crime bill, welfare reform, free trade, etc

[RINO Tom]

If anything it’s “in” to do the opposite.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Yes, he went full blown on Fracking and Environmentalist told him not to he would ruin the Environment and so did the Bushes due to ties to Enron and Halibut ton

[TheElectoralBoobyPrize]

It's probably safe to say that with regards to domestic issues, most of Reaganism was implemented under other administrations. Under Reagan himself, there were tax cuts and increases in spending on social programs slowed to basically inflation plus population growth, but that's about it.

[TheReckoning]

Too much credit from Republicans, too little credit from Democrats.

[Cassandra]

He was an empty suit, an actor who knew how to hit his marks and knew better than to try and wield power in the service of his own idiosyncratic vision (which is what doomed Nixon).

[If my soul was made of stone]

Halibut ton

Alaskan fishermen, the source of all of the Bush dynasty's ill-gotten gains.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

You're focusing far too much on the fiscal (rather than monetary) side. Reagan oversaw the epochal change in the structure of the US economy with an anti-inflationary strategy of high interest rates to prevent wage spirals by disciplining labour with mass unemployment, hollowing out manufacturing and much of the primary/secondary sector in favour of services and massively redistributing wealth and power in the economy upwards. Now Carter appointed Volcker, but it largely happened under Reagan.

Reagan is so important because he represented the political victory of the anti-inflationary coalition that has dominated US and world politics since. For example, why did Clinton go along with slashing welfare in office? Because the monetarists at the Fed had gained immense prestige from solving stagflation with brutal interest rate rises, and Greenspan was telling Clinton that if he didn't cut spending to deal with the deficit then he would have to raise interest rates to stop inflation, which would raise unemployment. And Reagan's landslide victories had proved this was a politically viable threat - you could win elections after overseeing mass unemployment as long as you controlled inflation. Both policy elites and the middle voter conceived of government spending and welfare as constantly risking a return to 70s stagflation, and if that happened you dealt with it by attacking lower incomes and labour, as Reagan had proved worked for the economy.

Clinton to Reagan here is more like Blair in relation to Thatcher (her famous quote that New Labour was her proudest accomplishment): they were both reacting under and extending the logic of the political economy that had been established in the 80s.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

On domestic policy yes, without a doubt; he ruined the country and has been getting praised to the stars for it for forty years now. On foreign policy not necessarily; his insight that the Soviet Union was internally weaker than it looked and might collapse under sufficient diplomatic pressure was genuinely a masterstroke. What this doesn't excuse is the other key element of his foreign policy, namely the retreat from Carter's halfhearted human rights focus all the way back to the "RESPECT MUH ALLIES" anything's-better-than-left-wing-rule amorality of the Eisenhower-Kennedy years.

[Meclazine for Israel]

I grew up with him as an 11 or 12 yo and even at that age, I could tell he was a few sheep short in the top paddock.

[Badger]

F@#k yes.

[OSR stands with Israel]

The return to Eisenhower era foreign policy is why we won the Cold War . Detente was a total failure at that point and it was good that it was chucked out the window .

[All Along The Watchtower]

yes. bill clinton did a good 90% of what people into consie stuff credit reagan for with the crime bill, welfare reform, free trade, etc

"best Republican President we've had in our lifetime" etc.

[CEO Mindset]

yes. bill clinton did a good 90% of what people into consie stuff credit reagan for with the crime bill, welfare reform, free trade, etc

"best Republican President we've had in our lifetime" etc.

yep. that's a reason to hate clinton... not lib/prog but i really hate neocons

[Fuzzy Bear]

The return to Eisenhower era foreign policy is why we won the Cold War . Detente was a total failure at that point and it was good that it was chucked out the window .

Reagan was a lot better on the foreign policy front than on the domestic front, to be sure.  He did, however, get interest rates and inflation under reasonable control and he did reduce unemployment.