Why Ronald Reagan was a crappy president

by Roland Hulme

According to many conservatives, Ronald Reagan was the finest president since Americans stopped wearing tricorn hats. The truth is very far from that.

Just for the record, I think The Gipper was a terrific guy - but it's worth being intellectually honest with ourselves about the effect his policies had on the American economy; and how they've led to the situation we're in today.

The most notable failure of Ronald Reagan's presidency was his outrageous spending. Reagan practically invented the current Republican economic policy of spending like a sailor on shore leave. During the Reagan years, public debt nearly doubled from 26.1% of GDP to 41%, while spending was higher throughout the Reagan years than at any time from 1971 onwards. Current conservatives call Obama an outrageous spender, but lets never forget that Reagan was the one who introduced the policy of government spending beyond its means.

Next, lets talk taxes:

Reagan is famous for "Reaganomics" and his policy of cutting taxes for the rich, theoretically allowing their wealth to "trickle down" to the middle and working classes. History has shown that this is an economically bankrupt philosophy; since it's the middle and working class who are actually more likely to spend tax cuts and stimulate the economy. The rich tend to save or invest their money in a way which keeps it out of the spending pool.

And while Reagan is rightly lauded for lowering the top marginal tax rate from 70% to 28% (personally, I feel any tax rate above 50% is unacceptable) he should perhaps be better recognized for not reducing the tax burden, but merely redistributing it.

Payroll taxes for the middle and working class actually increased during the Reagan years - and ultimately the federal share of GDP for tax revenue remained pretty much the same. The only thing that shifted was who paid it.

Reagan even introduced the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982; the largest peacetime tax increase in United States history. Republicans are conspicuously silent about that one even as they harass Obama for tax increases he hasn't even implemented.

The fact is, President Reagan was the first president who understood that the U.S. economy was essentially a giant Ponzi scheme; and you could spend what you wanted and shift the balance onto the proceeding generation. Bush Jnr. tried to emulate that, flashing the federal credit card to pay for trillions of dollars of overseas military operations.

So you can say what you like about The Gipper - I particularly admire his open-mindedness about same-sex couples - but don't let's pretend that he was an economic genius, or his era was a golden one financially. The Savings and Loan crisis? The stock market crash of 1987? Lay the blame for those firmly on Reagan's doorstep.

Something needs to be done about the United States economy, that's for sure - but every time somebody tauts Reagan's name during the discussion, you know you're dealing with a nitwit.