Reagan Was Right

June 9, 2004

Now that Ronald Reagan has passed on, the sniping has already begun. One newspaper columnist wrote that he hoped Reagan was now turning “a toasty brown,” insinuating that the man who saved a wrecked economy, restored America's morale and brought down the Soviet Union might somehow be rotting in Hell. Another columnist's wrote, “Killer, coward, conman. Ronald Reagan, good-bye and good riddance.”

 

These sniveling little weenies are still hacked off that Reagan short-circuited their plans to turn this country into a socialist state, or worse. Reagan represented everything they aren't: hard-working, patriotic, proud, visionary, and believers in the entrepreneurial spirit and rugged individualism. These cowardly kooks turn a blind eye to the truth. Reagan's record stands on its own, despite the hateful, vitriolic criticism now spewing from society's underbelly.

 

In my book, Right From The Heart: The ABCs of Reality in America , I delineated conservative principles in alphabetical order. Only one person warranted an entire chapter. That person was Ronald Reagan. The title of chapter ‘R' was “Reagan was right.” Indeed, he was. Many people have forgotten just how bad off this country was prior to Reagan taking office. As I point out in the book, the inflation rate stood at 13.3 percent in 1979. When Reagan left office it was 4.4 percent. Remember how sky-high interest rates were? They were at 21 percent when he took office and had dropped to just 8 percent when he left.

 

Oh, but what about those deficits? Reagan gave us those, right? As a matter of fact, he did not. When you actually examine the record you'll find that Reagan submitted 8 budgets to Congress. All 8 were rejected. Only one of Reagan's budgets asked for more money than Congress ended up spending. That was in 1984 when Reagan's budget asked for 1.2 percent more. Pay attention to this part because it's real important. If Congress had adopted Reagan's budgets instead of their own, even including the 1984 budget, we would've seen a surplus in 1989.

 

That's not what the Reagan-haters want you to know but it's the truth. It's also true that his tax cuts, most of which he did get through Congress, jump-started the economy and we saw revenue to the treasury double during the 1980s from $517 billion to $1.031 trillion. These weren't tax cuts for the rich. They were across-the-board tax cuts. Naturally, the more you paid in taxes, the more you saved, but all taxpayers got a break and the economy came roaring back.

 

But even though revenues increased at a rate of nearly 100 percent during the ‘80s, spending, controlled by Congress, increased by about 112 percent. One of the real lessons of the Reagan years, which we've yet to learn, is don't outstrip the prosperity. That's what the state and federal governments did during the ‘80s and ‘90s.

 

And who can forget the Soviet Union? We lived in mortal fear of nuclear annihilation from the “Evil Empire.” Our children today may fear a terrorist's bomb but they need to be reminded that it's nothing in comparison to the gripping fear of nuclear holocaust.

 

Although Reagan suffered from Alzheimer's disease the final decade of his life, the disease, ironically, enabled his presidency to be examined for what it was rather than how the leftists spun it. His disease kept the jackals at bay while Reagan's real message had a chance to sink into the American psyche. Now the knives are out and the teeth are bare but it's too late. The American people know the truth and nothing these bitter, anti-American, pompous pinheads say can change it.