Legacy
By Hmm. Anything good about the Reagan legacy?
We can say that he probably wasn’t dumb enough to actually believe in supply-side economics. He understood the political value of tax cuts, but wasn’t blind; not like the current administration. I don’t know if that makes him better or worse than G.W. He was bright enough to help raise taxes six times after 1982, and to keep word of what he was doing as quiet as possible. And, frankly, the highest marginal tax rates probably were a bit steep in 1981, and did need some trimming.
He presided over a fairly disastrous padding of the military budget. Wingnuts like to argue that balloning defense spending brought the Soviet Union down. They’d have a better case if they were talking about the second Reagan term, when engagement with the USSR really did reduce tensions, which helped cut the legs from under Soviet communism. To his credit, Reagan presided over the intellectual revitilization of the military, which included both a slew of new doctrinal ideas (good) and a hard turn to the right (bad).
Outside of relations with the Soviet Union, things were kind of grim on the foreign policy record. Coddled any dictator he could find that would say bad things about the USSR. Supported Marcos in the Phillipines almost to the end, Pinochet in Chile, and various other groups of murderers in Latin America. “Allowed” his subordinates to hatch a brilliant plan for shipping weapons to a terrorist supporting state in return for freeing hostages, then sending the profits from those weapons to a terrorist group in another state. Makes one a bit leery about calls for a “Neo-Reaganite” foreign policy. If by “neo” you mean “not”, then I’m on board.
Not a good president, but played one on TV. For some, that’s all that matters. Reagan always had more symbolic than real value to the right. For the next month, they’re going to play it for all that it’s worth. Undoubtedly, Kerry will be forced to profess admiration for the “Great Communicator.” Undoubtedly, the Naderites will come out in force to attack Kerry. Best thing he could probably do is try to turn the homage for Reagan into a criticism of Bush; no matter how bad Reagan was, G.W. is a lot worse.