The GOP's selective memory on Ronald Reagan

[chessdev.livejournal.com]

The GOP's selective memory on Ronald Reagan

By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
As we mark the centennial of Ronald Reagan's birth, one of our major political parties has become imbued with the Gipper's political philosophy and governing style. I mean the Democrats, of course.

Ronald Reagan: Actor, president, statesman

The Republican Party tries to claim the Reagan mantle but has moved so far to the right that it now inhabits its own parallel universe. On the planet that today's GOP leaders call home, Reagan would qualify as one of those big-government, tax-and-spend liberals who are trying so hard to destroy the American way of life.

Some Republicans, I suppose, might be so enraptured by the Reagan legend that they are unaware of his actual record. I hate to break it to Sarah Palin, but Reagan raised taxes. Often. Sometimes by a lot.

When he took office as governor of California in 1967, the state faced a huge budget deficit. Reagan promptly raised taxes by $1 billion - at a time when the entire state budget amounted to just $6 billion. It was then the biggest state tax increase in history. During Reagan's eight years in Sacramento, the top state income tax rate increased from 7 percent to 11 percent. Business and sales taxes also soared.

When Reagan moved into the White House, he brought with him a theory that critics derided as "voodoo economics" - the idea that the way to balance the budget was to lower taxes, not raise them. Reagan quickly pushed through the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, a tax cut of about $264 billion. Republicans seem to rank this event alongside Columbus's discovery of the New World as one of the great milestones in human history.

What eludes the GOP's selective memory is that Reagan subsequently raised taxes 11 times, beginning with the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982. All told, he took back roughly half of that hallowed 1981 tax cut. Why? Because he realized that the United States needed an effective federal government - and that to be effective, the government needed more money.

Republicans laud Reagan's unshakable commitment to smaller government. Yet federal employment rolls grew under his watch; they shrank under Bill Clinton. Reagan had promised to eliminate the departments of Energy and Education, but he didn't. Instead, he signed legislation that added to the Cabinet a new Department of Veterans Affairs.

On social issues, Reagan advocated a federal ban on abortions, the legalization of organized prayer in the schools and an end to court-ordered busing to achieve racial balance. He accomplished none of this. In his personal life, by all accounts, Reagan was a live-and-let-live kind of guy. He did, after all, spend much of his adult life as a denizen of - cover your ears, Republicans - evil Hollywood.

None of this is to suggest that the patron saint of modern American conservatism was some sort of flaming liberal, just that he was a pragmatist who respected objective reality. In a big state or a big country, big government was a given. When taxes needed to be raised, the thing to do was raise them.

Even though Reagan knew that ideology had its limits, I don't doubt that he truly believed the ideology he espoused. His biggest impact on domestic politics was that the center of gravity shifted to the right - enough, in fact, that what once were extreme views have become orthodox.

Democrats sound and act almost like Reaganites. It was Clinton, remember, who balanced the budget and ended welfare "as we know it." President Obama has pledged not to raise taxes on the middle class, and Democrats couldn't even manage to reverse tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that might have made even Reagan blush. Obama based his health-care package on Republican ideas - including the individual mandate, which had been proposed by conservative think tanks and implemented by Mitt Romney.

Meanwhile, the Republican Party has lost its mind. The GOP argues for deep across-the-board budget cuts of a kind that Reagan ultimately rejected. Party leaders denounce the belief that government can do any good for anybody as "socialism."

Here's a quote that might have come from a Democrat during last fall's tax-cut debate: "We don't seek to aid the rich, but those lower- and middle-income families who are most strapped by taxes and the recession." In fact, Ronald Reagan said those words in 1983, when he was arguing for tuition tax credits. Remind me: Who are the Gipper's true heirs?

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/07/AR2011020704538.html


[chessdev]  So when you hear cries of "Socialism" and "Big Government"  from the same people who post images of 'Thanks Dutch'  and proclaim Reagan as one of the greats ... remember this.

This is also one of the reasons I get annoyed at all these cries of "Socialism" from the conservatives out there about Democrats and Obama --- who implemented a good number of Republican ideas,  as well
as those who talk about the Economic propsperity Reagan gave us as a "counter-point" to Obama...

Most of the arguments along these lines strike me as fairly revisionist -- and thus dishonest or disingenuous.   Why exactly do we hear people proclaiming Reagan's greatness....without those same
people remembering he raised taxes, increased government, and did massive deficit spending?

Or are things "good for the economy" ONLY good when a Republican does it?  Thoughts?

Comments

[tridus.livejournal.com]

Facts have no place in the Republican Party. This is a party built on good American values, and minor details like the truth won't get in the way!

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

The Founding Fathers, who worked tirelessly to end slavery, approve this comment.


/except Zombie John Adams who saw some upstart named Lincoln actually end slavery

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'Facts have no place in the Republican Party. '

Democrats are the biggest group of idiots and liars known to man.

Your turn.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Facts have no place in partisan politics, period. Everybody is stupid and hypocritical, especially the people who pretend that absence of facts is limited to one side of the aisle (see: JFK Jr.'s hatred of vaccines).

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

OMG I SAW THE SCREENING IN REAL TIME!

wow, that's what generated all those replies yesterday? hoop-de-doo-doo.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Was that a test?

[anadinboy.livejournal.com]

well ppl did say he was wildly currupted by nancy

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The real Reagan would have been a bleeding heart liberal who cut and ran following Islamist terror and he also would not have said Jesus enough to suit the so-called Moral Majority.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

The real Reagan actually did cut and run following Islamist terror. His single worst decision.

[verytwistedmind.livejournal.com]

Doesn't the fact that the Democrats controlled Congress for all of Regan's presidency have a lot to do with the legislation that was passed?

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

As long as we're mythbusting Reagan, Edmund Morris did a mildly interesting "5 Myths" about him in the WaPo last week: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/04/AR2011020403106.html

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

I watched this post go up to 18 comments and then back to 9 - have some of them been "disappeared" by the Sekrit Police?

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

I hope you read yesterday's post.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

[telemann.livejournal.com]

*thick German accent*

We have ways to deal with you!

[anadinboy.livejournal.com]

i like the way mods deal with drama, the block on endless comments stops the reaction to the action etc. UN and pentagon take note!

[chessdev.livejournal.com]

Actually *I* stopped the drama and blocked it.

But thanks 8-)

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Eugene Robinson is a great guy, he comes across as a very cool guy when he's interviewed, definitely the type you'd want to share a few brewskis with, and talk political history.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

"This is also one of the reasons I get annoyed at all these cries of "Socialism" from the conservatives out there about Democrats and Obama --- who implemented a good number of Republican ideas"

Can ya name one? I mean there was Obama Care which I suppose could be called Romney care on Steroids but lets face it, Romney is a Massachusetts Republican which in most states would make him about as "Republican" as the head of the state ACLU.

"Most of the arguments along these lines strike me as fairly revisionist -- and thus dishonest or disingenuous. Why exactly do we hear people proclaiming Reagan's greatness....without those same
people remembering he raised taxes, increased government, and did massive deficit spending?"

Cut Taxes, Raised Taxes. Those two terms are so relative that they are practically meaningless. What Reagan actually did with taxes that created prosperity was leveled and simplified them.

As far as increasing government and massive government spending, yes that is a flaw of Reagan's but as with every other President he gets both too much credit and too much blame for the Federal Budget because all spending and appropriations bills originate with the Congress.

That said if you want to find the President(s) most responsible for the impending Debt crisis in the US you have to look at Lyndon Johnson and Franklin Roosevelt because even if you want to blame 100% of the existing debt on things other than Social Security and Medicare it would be relatively easy to deal with if we did not have the time bombs built into those two programs about to go off.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Obama passed the largest tax cuts of any POTUS in history and retained most of Bush's programs from the 2000s. Which were not Stalinism when done by Republicans but are Islamofascicommunazism when done by the Democrats. The President *has* cut taxes, it does nothing to stop the "He the Antichrist" crowd.

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

It was Clinton, remember, who ... ended welfare "as we know it."

it's been a while since welfare reform, and I know that BC promised it in '92, but to what extent is it fair or reasonable to give BC the credit/blame for what we eventually got? Wasn't it more of a Republican initiative for which he just plugged his nose and eventually signed, but somewhat reluctantly? To that extent is it really accurate to portray Clinton as Reagan's ideological descendant in that regard?

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Don't you LOVE it when LJ neo-cons and Libertarians make the claim it was Reagan / Bush policies that were the reason Clinton got the great economy during the 1990s, but Jimmy Carter was responsible for inflation and the oil crisis, and high interest rates.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

he raised taxes

Well, let's see what the data says about that.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html

Looks like, for married filing jointly, if you made between $0 and $5500, then you are correct. However, if you made more than $5500, then your federal income tax rate was lower in 1989 than it was in 1981. And for single filers, your taxes went up only if you made less than $3400.

You can see the comparison chart here (https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AlJ7ZBUrws-tdGthUkZDQi02VzY0azZkMTMyYmZkMUE&hl=en&authkey=COWgq9AK).

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Clever, but Robinson wasn't just talking about "income taxes."

From Forbes (http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/02/barack-obama-ronald-reagan-budget-taxes-opinions-contributors-rob-shapiro.html)

The first part of that path entails raising higher revenues. Everyone remembers Reagan's 1981 tax cuts. His admirers are less likely to tout the tax hikes he accepted as the 1981 recession and his own tax cuts began to unravel his long-term fiscal picture--a large tax increase on business in 1982, higher payroll taxes enacted in 1983 and higher energy taxes in 1984. A decade later, when a serious recession and higher spending began to upend the fiscal outlook again, the first President Bush similarly raised taxes on higher-income people in 1991; Bill Clinton doubled down and raised them again in 1993.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'Republicans laud Reagan's unshakable commitment to smaller government. Yet federal employment rolls grew under his watch; they shrank under Bill Clinton.'

Well the military is a federal job...

The same things you're saying about the GOP of today was said about Reagan back then and anyone saying Reagan was a pragmatist back then would be derided as crazy or a rabid right-winger.

You seem to give a lot of "credit" to the parties that make your argument convenient.

Bullshit:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And yet the USSR disintegrated when Bush I was in office, while Reagan was considered to be played for a fool by Gorbachev and the latter was negotiating the forever-existence of the USSR when the two were negotiating in his second term.

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

He was as great a speaker as Obama, but one gets extra points for being a movie star.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

I'd take Reagan's partisans today more seriously if a person trying to point out that Obama took office in the middle of a massive crisis not of his making were not likely to be met by someone shrieking "BUT BUSH BUT BUSH BUT BUSH" while the man they laud as the best President in American history ran for reelection FOUR YEARS into his term on the message of "It's Morning in America" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU-IBF8nwSY) -- which basically meant "Damn, Carter fucked us bad but we've finally got things moving again".

The Reagan of history would have to be denounced by the very people mythologizing him today.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Anybody remember when the INF Treaty was the moment we surrendered the Cold War to the USSR and the Red Hordes would be ruling the USA in the next fifteen minutes?

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE5DD163FF934A25752C0A96E948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And anyone remember when we gave arms to that charming and lovely representative of Middle Eastern Freedom! (who was steadily reducing his population in human wave offensives at the time) Ayatollah Khomeini to back the "moral equivalent of our founding fathers?". I'm sure Washington and Jefferson would be honored to be compared to nun-raping mass murderous assclowns.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/269619.stm

[stewstewstewdio.livejournal.com]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/07/AR2011020704538.html

Thanks for mentioning the Washington Post. I'll probably get flamed for this, but to me, it seems like the most centrist and non-biased of the major newspapers I've seen.