Reagan accomplished a lot of good for America. He was the most brilliant communicator since Franklin D. Roosevelt--a tremendous asset in the age of instant communication. He was the first president since Eisenhower to fill out two full terms, which brought stability to the Executive Branch. His sunny demeanor and outstanding communication lifted Americans from a long period of gloom. His courage in going public with his colon cancer, and his brave (even humorous) response to the near-fatal assassination attempt, inspired Americans. Although he came to office as the most rhetorically anti-Soviet president, he was pragmatic enough to see that Gorbachev was a different kind of Soviet leader. He and Gorby forged an important agreement to remove medium-range missiles from Europe, which set the stage for the more significant nuclear arms reductions negotiated by George H.W. Bush and Clinton.
But, Reagan used his matchless communication skills to make Americans believe that government (which he headed) was their enemy. Not surprisingly, the people he brought into government had contempt for it, and plundered the public. His lifting of restrictions on S&L's required a $200 billion bailout that we're still paying off. He cut the safety net from millions of America's most needy people, putting seriously mentally and physically ill people out on the street. Wprst of all: he presided over the greatest upward transfer of wealth in our history--the rich have gotten richer ever since, and the middle class pays for it.
Overall: more harm than good.
I agree, a horrible president, and yes, right out of central casting,
he was a champion union buster, hated unions, and despised the poor.
He didn't despise the poor. That's one of the myths of the left-wing. Because he decreased marginal tax rates there was an increase in revenues and an increase in private employment. In the African American community employment increased to a larger extent than for white Americans, the same goes for entrepreneurship.
The problem was, while Reagan was "the great communicator," he was tone-deaf to racial symbolism and explaining how his free market economics would help the poor. The Left went out of their way to define him as how you described him, as someone who despised the poor. It's like saying he hated unions. He didn't, but he didn't like the political power of some unions that were in the pockets of the Democratic Party. I was a job steward years ago and saw first hand how unions often overreach, even if it means shooting themselves in the foot by causing the business to go bankrupt. That's what happened in Detroit.
I also hate to disagree with Turnbull on this one, but the idea of people keeping more of their own money, the money that they worked for, is not an "upward transfer of wealth." He also didn't wipe out welfare or anything of the kind. It was cut by about 1% and the CETA Program, which was considered a failure, was discontinued. Reagan also followed Paul Volcker's advice on battling inflation, which led to a brief recession, but once it ended it led to a period of sustained job growth and prosperity.
http://www.utsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040611/news_lz1e11perkins.htmlThe S&L crisis wasn't caused by Reagan but by multiple factors, such as the fact that most of them were in bad shape in 1981, the bureau that was supposed to monitor them covered up, and Congress passed the buck instead of dealing with the issue head-on early. See
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/SavingsandLoanCrisis.html
