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| Reagan Worshippers, image by Mike Licht, Notions Capital http://notionscapital. wordpress.com/2011/02/05/ reagan-worshippers-to- celebrate-centennial/ Well done Mr. Licht, you've captured it perfectly - and a thanks to Mike B for helping me find this. |
Let's take a look: Ronald Reagan raised taxes. Not just once either, but 11 times. While some might protest that NPR is a lefty source for an opinion, you won't find any criticism, much less factual reporting on the Reagan era on the right at all. Per an NPR news interview:
Former Senator ALAN SIMPSON (Republican, Wyoming): Ronald Reagan raised taxes 11 times in his administration. I was here. I was here. I knew him. Better than anybody in this room. He was a dear friend and a total realist as to politics.My favorite part is when Stockman attests to the utter failure of trickle down / supply side economics. It has never worked, not at any time in our history, or the history of any other country. And yet.....conservatives still pray to it like a golden idol out of the biblical old testament.
HORSLEY: Simpson's recollection is spot on, says historian Douglas Brinkley, the editor of Reagan's diaries.
Professor DOUGLAS BRINKLEY (Rice University): Ronald Reagan was never afraid to raise taxes. 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.
HORSLEY: Reagan's budget director, David Stockman, explains the 1981 tax cut blew a much bigger hole in the federal budget than expected. So over the next few years, Reagan agreed to raise taxes again and again, ultimately undoing about half the savings of the '81 cut.
Mr. DAVID STOCKMAN (Former Director, Office Management and Budget): He wasn't very happy about it. He did it reluctantly. But at the end of the day, the math was overwhelming.
FLINTOFF: That's because Reagan was never able to match his 1981 tax cuts with a comparable cut in federal spending. A modest reduction in domestic spending was dwarfed by Reagan's big buildup in the Pentagon budget. And, Stockman says, Reagan never made a serious effort to challenge middle class entitlement programs, after an early proposal to curtail Social Security benefits was shot down.
Mr. STOCKMAN: The White House and President Reagan himself retreated within three days when it became clear the enormous political resistance that would occur if you were going to cut entitlements.
FLINTOFF: And without big spending cuts, Reagan faced a choice between raising taxes and an even bigger federal debt. He chose the tax hikes. Today the federal debt's bigger than ever, and policymakers are again staring at painful choices. President Obama's fiscal commission says both deep spending cuts and tax increases will be needed to bring the budget under control. But ever since Reagan, presidents who've tried to raise taxes are confronted with the myth of their tax-cutting predecessor.
FLINTOFF: That persona is carefully cultivated by those, like Grover Norquist, who use Reagan's legacy as a weapon to fight off new taxes. Stockman says these myth-makers are distorting the real Reagan record.
Which leads to the question.....will conservatives who claim to admire Reagan learn the lessons of history as they contemplate making the cuts where Reagan feared to tred? I don't think so. To learn from history, you need accurate history, not convenient lying revisions.
Mr. STOCKMAN: I wouldn't call it merely airbrushing. I would call it outright revisionism if not fabrication of history.And he still left a dramatically exploded deficit to approximately three times what it had been by the end of his terms in office, more than the first 80 years of the 20th century - in only 8 YEARS. It wasn't just a presidential pattern; he made the largest tax hikes to that date when he was governor of California too!
HORSLEY: Stockman still believes tax cuts are good policy in some circumstances. But for too many politicians, he says, they've become a kind of religion. To these tax-cutting faithful, Ronald Reagan is a patron saint. Like many saints, his real story is not as pristine as the legend. But for those worried about today's red ink, it may be a more practical guide in staring at painful choices. President Obama's fiscal commission says both deep spending cuts and tax increases will be needed to bring the budget under control. But ever since Reagan, presidents who've tried to raise taxes are confronted with the myth of their tax-cutting predecessor.
Then there was the terrorist negotiations - the Iran contra scandal. What would happen to Obama if he did that? Would the right recognize the similarity to Reagan.....or apply a scathing, screaming double standard? I'm safe in assuming the latter.
And if Obama had an epic failure like the loss of 241 members of our military in Lebanon, or cutting and running after such a loss........who reading this believes for an instant that the right would give the same pass to Obama that they give to St.Ronnie?
And........the right likes to forget that it was Reagan who supported Osama bin Laden and the Taliban with aid and weapons as well........and look how that has worked out.
But probably the biggest item that would rile the Right if they were honest and not operating on a double standard was Reagan giving amnesty to 3 million undocumented illegal aliens. Now, the legislation granting amnesty to illegal aliens which was SUPPOSED to provide strict sanctions against employers on future hiring of illegals was removed. Anyone want to guess who did that - hint........Republicans!
Lets go to another NPR news interview for a quote:
The law granted amnesty to nearly 3 million illegal immigrants, yet was largely considered unsuccessful because the strict sanctions on employers were stripped out of the bill for passage.The bill was so bad, the only GOOD thing WAS the amnesty. Reagan was pro-amnesty for illegal immigrants long before this immigration bill of 1986.
Simpson says the amnesty provision actually saved the act from being a total loss. "It's not perfect, but 2.9 million people came forward. If you can bring one person out of an exploited relationship, that's good enough for me."
Reagan "knew that it was not right for people to be abused," Simpson says. "Anybody who's here illegally is going to be abused in some way, either financially [or] physically. They have no rights."Can you imagine what would happen if President Obama or any democrat in the House of Representatives or the Senate made that statement? That is a double standard; exalting Reagan, while whitewashing what he did.
Peter Robinson, a former Reagan speechwriter, agrees. "It was in Ronald Reagan's bones — it was part of his understanding of America — that the country was fundamentally open to those who wanted to join us here."
Reagan said as much himself in a televised debate with Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale in 1984.
"I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here, even though sometime back they may have entered illegally," he [Reagan]said.
The one thing that Reagan did which modern Republicans and Tea Partiers might approve, but which Congress overruled back in the day was the Comprehensive Apartheid Act. Reagan vetoed it, and both the House and Senate voted it in a second time, overriding that veto. The legislation called for an end to the oppressive racism of South Africa, imposing sanctions. The right, including Reagan, had a sometimes very ugly record on race for more than four decades. The birthers would be right at home. The tea partiers who want to repeal parts of the Civil Rights Act prohibiting discrimination in public places, including businesses, now that's something they can consistently appreciate - and they won't admit it's racism either.
On the Centennial of your birth President Reagan, you have the right to some accuracy. And God knows, the Right won't give it to you.
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