Reagan, had he lived, would be 100 on Sunday, February 6. Many festivities are planned for celebration, including one to be memorialized by Sarah Palin, who wishes to fall heir to the Republican throne in 2012, but contributions aside, in the balance Reagan’s era can be said to have ushered in problems we are facing today.
While conservatives laud Ronald Reagan’s achievements, in both national and international venues; there was more to Reagan, our 40th President than just those.
Reagan is praised for his helping to facilitate better relations with China and showing leadership at the fall of the Berlin Wall. These are praiseworthy achievements for sure. But overlooked in the din to raise Reagan up, the problems need examined as well.
It was during Reagan’s tenure the differences in financial status between the rich and the poor increased dramatically and has continued to increase since his Presidency. What the Economist said was “If all Americans were set on a ladder with ten rungs, the gap between the wages of those on the ninth rung and those on the first has risen by a third since 1980. Put another way, the typical worker earns only 10% more in real terms than his counterpart 25 years ago, even though overall productivity has risen much faster. Economists have long debated why America’s income disparities suddenly widened after 1980. ”
The cause for that widening gap has been said to be technology or institutional changes, most especially the weakening of the unions. It was during the Reagan years, unions were demoralized and discouraged. The income concentration began to cement at the top.
But it is homelessness for which Reagan has consistently been seen as unleashing. It was during his administration the problem grew, and he did little or nothing to stop it, according to experts. The National Housing Institute underlines that is the Reagan legacy. This is how the organization explains it: “The two-term president was no friend to America’s cities or its poor. Reagan came to office in 1981 with a mandate to reduce federal spending. In reality, he increased it through the escalating military budget, all the while slashing funds for domestic programs that assisted working class Americans, particularly the poor.
Social service programs became gutted, meaningful assistance undermined during Reagan years. It was, one could say, the shift from the earlier years of helping the underclass to the tendency to ignore or walk away from that group. It is the Republican manner today. To that extent the new Republicans are heirs to the throne of that Reagan, as the country struggles with homelessness and the mentally ill on the streets, another part of the Reagan legacy.
It was also under Reagan that the dramatic deregulation of the nation’s savings and loan industry allowing S&Ls; to end reliance on home mortgages and begin a widespread engagement in commercial real estate speculation. The scandals were numerous, involving widespread mismanagement and hundreds of thrift institutions that collapse. A taxpayer bailout in hundreds of billions of dollars was required. The initiation of deregulation continued, to the detriment of the economy, as it helped to fuel the downturn and recession in the housing industry that continues to plague us now.
Are we better off for having Reagan as President? Ask the poor who lingered, their children who grew hopeless, the increase of numbers in prisons, the families of mentally ill on the streets if they are better off. Ask the people who have lost their homes and the people who count stock market losses in their retirement funds. Then wonder if this birthday of Reagan, and the faults that are left in the dust when the celebrations are over, needs to be cheered long and lusty or just quiet respect for the good that he did, while trying to get past the harm.
References
Palin to Keynote Reagan’s 100th
http://nation.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/27/palin-keynote-reagans-100th
Fox Nation
Inequality in America: The rich, the poor and the growing gap between them
http://www.lookingglassnews.org/viewstory.php?storyid=6471
Looking Glass News/The Economist
Reagan’s Legacy: Homelessness in America
http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/135/reagan.html
National Housing Institute
