By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources and Editor of the Reagan Monitor(www.originalsources.com)
February 6, 2001
The issues in 1980 when Ronald Reagan became president revolved around rebuilding a tattered military, cutting taxes, getting the economy back on track and reducing the size of government. Does that sound vaguely familiar? An entire generation that knows little of what actually happened in the Reagan administration has grown up in the past twenty years.
Ed Meese, in his book "With Reagan, the Inside Story" wrote:
"It is hard to think of a presidential campaign in recent memory that has been so oriented to specific issues as that conducted by Reagan in 1980. In domestic matters, he hammered repeatedly on the themes of reducing taxes, getting government spending under control, cutting back over-regulation, and the need for a stable monetary policy. All these things were required, he said, to get the economy moving again - and all were completely different from the standard practice of the federal government."
The centerpiece of Reagan's campaign was his proposal for an across-the-board, 30% cut in personal income taxes over three years. And, to accomplish a tax cut, he somehow would have to get it past a Democrat House of Representatives, Speaker of the House Thomas O'Neill, and faint-hearted members of his own staff.
What is not generally understood about the Reagan years was the extent of the problems Ronald Reagan inherited. According to Meese, one of the most difficult to reverse was the phenomenon of "bracket creep" in which taxpayers often found that a small raise in their income was more than wiped out by finding themselves in a higher income bracket.
Meese observed:
"The effects of bracket creep were insidious, for they allowed the federal government to profiteer secretly from inflation. The process punished taxpayers not once but twice -debasing the purchasing power of their dollars, then hitting them with higher taxes as their nominal incomes moved up the tax scale."
The inflation of the 1970s, combined with ever higher taxes had effectively stunted the growth of the economy - high taxes, high inflation, stagnating growth and rising unemployment was the order of the day when Ronald Reagan was sworn into office.
The other issue was the issue of communism. Meese noted that economist John Kenneth Galbraith, after his visit to the USSR in 1984, wrote about it's "great material progress in recent years and praised, "the appearance of solid well-being of the people on the streets, the close to murderous traffic, the incredible exfoliation of apartment houses and the general aspect of restaurants, theaters, and shops..."
Less than five years after Galbraith's glowing report, the USSR collapsed, to the utter astonishment of apologists like Galbraith.
"Who could have expected what was about to happen?" Meese asked. "At least one person did expect it - and he repeatedly said so. That person was Ronald Reagan, who throughout his career had me a point of emphasizing the errors of the Soviet approach, the resulting vulnerabilities of communist rule and the inevitable breakdown of the Marxist system if it were ever seriously challenged."
Many who ridiculed Ronald Reagan's statements as "Cold War rhetoric" or examples of Reagan's bumbling inexperience with the complexity of world diplomacy, somehow never were forced to admit that they were wrong. When Ronald Reagan, in a speech before the Association of Evangelicals, said that communism was "the focus of evil in the modern world," and that the Soviet Union was an "evil empire," he was ridiculed by the Western media as merely "posturing."
As time goes by, we are seeing more and more of the great legacy Ronald Reagan left the nation. Meese wrote:
"If Reagan had done nothing more than proclaim this truth" (about communism), while fashionable opinion was ridiculing it, he would stand vindicated before history. But the President did a great deal more than that. In addition to stressing the evils of communism, Reagan stressed its inherent weakness. In his view, the two were related, since in denying freedom the communists not only e4ngaged in tyranny, they also crippled the creative potential of the human spirit. Reagan firmly believed that freedom was both morally and materially superior to communism and constantly linked these themes in his speeches."
But, Ronald Reagan was more than just a great President. In the eyes of the person who had the closest observation post, his wife Nancy, he was, and still is her love, her happiness. She wrote in her book "My Turn:"
"What is Ronald Reagan really like? We have been married for almost forty years. (Editor's Note: On March 4th of next year that will be fifty years.) The secret to Ronald Reagan is that there really is no secret. He is exactly the man he appears to be. The Ronald Reagan you see in public is the same Ronald Reagan I live with. ...There aren't any dark corners to Ronald Reagan's character that will be revealed twenty years from now, no desperate moments of anguish, indecision, and self-doubt. Of course he has his moods and his disappointments, but on the whole, Ronnie is the most upbeat man I've ever known."There is also a common assumption that because Ronnie used to be an actor, everything he does must be an act. It's not. Ronald Reagan is not a fraud or a phony. He is what he seems to be. And ever since I've know him, this cynicism about Ronnie's good nature has led people to underestimate him."
And, even in these very difficult times as Alzheimer's disease has taken Ronald Reagan's memory from him, Nancy Reagan still says, as recently as yesterday, that all she wants is to be with him and take care of him.
Today, on his 90th birthday, we can stop to be thankful for this remarkable man, who set this nation on an economic boom that has lasted longer than any boom in the nation's history. That's a remarkable legacy of a remarkable man.
He never seemed to worry about his legacy as President but even more important than a booming economy, and the end to the Cold war, perhaps his greatest legacy that history will record is that he renewed the spirit of America with his optimism and the great love he showed of his country, his family, and his God.
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com
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