Originally Posted by
Hlleonard
For all you guys who believe Mr. Regan was your Mohamed.
This reads with a bit of a left twist and I haven't fact checked it
but I do suspect at least most of it is true... if much of it is true
you would have to be very foolish to want him back... Mr Regan
kick started the budgetary crisis we have today.
The taxation of Social Security began in 1984 following passage of a set of
Amendments in 1983, which were signed into law by President Reagan in April
1983. These amendments passed the Congress in 1983 on an overwhelmingly bi-
partisan vote.
The basic rule put in place was that up to 50% of Social Security benefits
could be added to taxable income, if the taxpayer's total income exceeded
certain thresholds.
And while Reagan somewhat slowed the marginal rate of growth in the budget, it
continued to increase during his time in office. So did the debt, skyrocketing
from $700 billion to $3 trillion. Then there's the fact that after first
pushing to cut Social Security benefits - and being stymied by Congress -
Reagan in 1983 agreed to a $165 billion bailout of the program. He also
massively expanded the Pentagon budget.
It's important to note that Reagan's tax increases did not wipe out the
effects of that initial tax cut. But they did eat up about half of it. And as
Peter Beinart points out, the 1983 payroll tax hike went to pay for Social
Security and Medicare. ("Reagan raised taxes to pay for government-run health
care," Beinart writes.) Reagan also raised the gas tax and signed the largest
corporate tax increase in history, an act Joshua Green writes would be
"utterly unimaginable for any conservative to support today."
1. Reagan was a serial tax raiser. As governor of California, Reagan
“signed into law the largest tax increase in the history of any state up till
then.” Meanwhile, state spending nearly doubled. As president, Reagan “raised
taxes in seven of his eight years in office,” including four times in just two
years. As former GOP Senator Alan Simpson, who called Reagan “a dear friend,”
told NPR, “Ronald Reagan raised taxes 11 times in his administration — I was
there.” “Reagan was never afraid to raise taxes,” said historian Douglas
Brinkley, who edited Reagan’s memoir. Reagan the anti-tax zealot is “false
mythology,” Brinkley said.
2. Reagan nearly tripled the federal budget deficit. During the Reagan
years, the debt increased to nearly $3 trillion, “roughly three times as much
as the first 80 years of the century had done altogether.” Reagan enacted a
major tax cut his first year in office and government revenue dropped off
precipitously. Despite the conservative myth that tax cuts somehow increase
revenue, the government went deeper into debt and Reagan had to raise taxes
just a year after he enacted his tax cut. Despite ten more tax hikes on
everything from gasoline to corporate income, Reagan was never able to get the
deficit under control.
3. Unemployment soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts. Unemployment jumped
to 10.8 percent after Reagan enacted his much-touted tax cut, and it took
years for the rate to get back down to its previous level. Meanwhile, income
inequality exploded. Despite the myth that Reagan presided over an era of
unmatched economic boom for all Americans, Reagan disproportionately taxed the
poor and middle class, but the economic growth of the 1980′s did little help
them. “Since 1980, median household income has risen only 30 percent, adjusted
for inflation, while average incomes at the top have tripled or quadrupled,”
the New York Times’ David Leonhardt noted.
4. Reagan grew the size of the federal government tremendously. Reagan
promised “to move boldly, decisively, and quickly to control the runaway
growth of federal spending,” but federal spending “ballooned” under Reagan. He
bailed out Social Security in 1983 after attempting to privatize it, and set
up a progressive taxation system to keep it funded into the future. He
promised to cut government agencies like the Department of Energy and
Education but ended up adding one of the largest — the Department of Veterans’
Affairs, which today has a budget of nearly $90 billion and close to 300,000
employees. He also hiked defense spending by over $100 billion a year to a
level not seen since the height of the Vietnam war.
5. Reagan did little to fight a woman’s right to choose. As governor of
California in 1967, Reagan signed a bill to liberalize the state’s abortion
laws that “resulted in more than a million abortions.” When Reagan ran for
president, he advocated a constitutional amendment that would have prohibited
all abortions except when necessary to save the life of the mother, but once
in office, he “never seriously pursued” curbing choice.
6. Reagan was a “bellicose peacenik.” He wrote in his memoirs that “[m]y
dream…became a world free of nuclear weapons.” “This vision stemmed from the
president’s belief that the biblical account of Armageddon prophesied nuclear
war — and that apocalypse could be averted if everyone, especially the
Soviets, eliminated nuclear weapons,” the Washington Monthly noted. And
Reagan’s military buildup was meant to crush the Soviet Union, but “also to
put the United States in a stronger position from which to establish effective
arms control” for the the entire world — a vision acted out by Regean’s vice
president, George H.W. Bush, when he became president.
7. Reagan gave amnesty to 3 million undocumented immigrants. Reagan signed
into law a bill that made any immigrant who had entered the country before
1982 eligible for amnesty. The bill was sold as a crackdown, but its tough
sanctions on employers who hired undocumented immigrants were removed before
final passage. The bill helped 3 million people and millions more family
members gain American residency. It has since become a source of major
embarrassment for conservatives.
8. Reagan illegally funneled weapons to Iran. Reagan and other senior U.S.
officials secretly sold arms to officials in Iran, which was subject to a an
arms embargo at the time, in exchange for American hostages. Some funds from
the illegal arms sales also went to fund anti-Communist rebels in Nicaragua —
something Congress had already prohibited the administration from doing. When
the deals went public, the Iran-Contra Affair, as it came to be know, was an
enormous political scandal that forced several senior administration officials
to resign.
9. Reagan vetoed a comprehensive anti-Apartheid act. which placed
sanctions on South Africa and cut off all American trade with the country.
Reagan’s veto was overridden by the Republican-controlled Senate. Reagan
responded by saying “I deeply regret that Congress has seen fit to override my
veto,” saying that the law “will not solve the serious problems that plague
that country.”
10. Reagan helped create the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. Reagan fought a
proxy war with the Soviet Union by training, arming, equipping, and funding
Islamist mujahidin fighters in Afghanistan. Reagan funneled billions of
dollars, along with top-secret intelligence and sophisticated weaponry to
these fighters through the Pakistani intelligence service. The Talbian and
Osama Bin Laden — a prominent mujahidin commander — emerged from these
mujahidin groups Reagan helped create, and U.S. policy towards Pakistan
remains strained because of the intelligence services’ close relations to
these fighters. In fact, Reagan’s decision to continue the proxy war after the
Soviets were willing to retreat played a direct role in Bin Laden’s
ascendancy.
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