Reagan Analysis: Overrated

Reagan Analysis: Overrated

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Date

HIS/145

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Hunger in America was nearly eliminated by the 1970s. However, millions of people in America experienced hunger on a daily basis in the 1980s because of one president and his total disregard for the poor. Ronald Reagan had no compassion for the poor and firmly believed poor people were poor because of their own laziness and lack of ambition. He was the first president since Herbert Hoover in successfully vilifying the poor and free the consciences of the wealthy that they had any responsibility in helping those less fortunate than themselves. The same president adopted the same "blame the victim" mentality to the AIDS epidemic (Cole, 2014). The health policies of the Reagan Administration were very ineffective and very slow to respond to the AIDS crisis and other public health problems. History will prove Ronald Reagan as a very overrated president who had the interests of large corporations and the wealthy as not only his primary concern, but also his only concern.

Economic Policies

Ronald Reagan once was asked if he believed there is hunger in America, and he said sarcastically "sure there is; they're dieting! (Cole, 2014)." This was during the 1960s, and his mean spirited lack of concern for all but the wealthy continued into his two terms in office during the 1980s. During the early twentieth century, the poorest American's were the elderly. Social Security changed this and helped millions of American's live out there old age with dignity, and healthcare to deal with declining health as they aged. This proved that the government could help in improving people's lives. Ronald Reagan wanted to end Social Security and allow millions of the elderly to live out their lives in severe poverty. He hated the idea of any kind of what he considered redistribution of wealth. Ronald Reagan tried to cut every kind of social spending to fund the military buildup and in the process forced millions more American's into poverty.

Ronald Reagan was hired by big corporations in the 1950s to stop unions (Cole, 2014). One of what Ronald Reagan, the wealthy, his supporters, and large corporations consider one of his greatest achievements in office was to destroy the air traffic controllers' union. This was a thinly veiled ploy to destroy all unions and destroy the aspirations of the working poor to make a decent living. Many American's supported Ronald Reagan and began to believe like he did, and that is the poor deserve to be poor and nobody including himself, the government, or the wealthy, have any responsibility in helping them empower themselves to improve their lives. The minimum wage was never increased during his eight years in office. This caused the working poor to sink deeper into poverty while working harder and longer for less money while Reagan's rich friends continued to see their wealth increase dramatically.

Supply-Side Economics

Ronald Reagan succeeded in cutting taxes in 1981, which were modest for the middle-class, but extremely large for the wealthiest one percent of American's.During the Reagan Administration supply-side economic theories were put into practice (Krugman, 2003). An analysis of how well the tax cuts helped or hurt the economy must be reviewed by not just how well the economy performed after the tax cuts, but by how economic observers read Reagan's economic record. The American economy experienced a severe recession between 1979 and 1982. The economy did grow at an annual rate of 4.2% from 1982 and 1989 (Krugman, 2003). The Reagan administration and his tax-cut advocates will point out the record of economic growth as proof supply-side economics worked. However, the American economy has almost always grown rapidly after a recession. The economy will improve as factories begin producing again at former levels. It also took many years for the economy to replace the millions of jobs lost to the recession of 1979 to 1982. The question that must be asked is whether the economy produced more than the usual business cycle recovery to understand whether supply-side economics did work as Ronald Reagan and his supporters claim (Krugman, 2003). Also, once the American economy was at full employment was it larger than would be expected? This is where supply-side economics fails miserably. Because the economy actually grew at a rate of 3% from 1979 when the business slump started and 1989 when the economy finally achieved full employment, this is actually the same growth rate between the two previous business cycle peaks in 1973 and 1979 (Krugman, 2003).

The tax cuts of 1981 did not provide any supply-side gains, but they did produce extremely large budget deficits. The budget deficits occurred even though discretionary spending plummeted from 4.5% of G.D.P. to 3.2% from 1981 to 1988 (Krugman, 2003). Discretionary spending is the courts, education, environmental cleanups, national parks, and more. The cuts were to help fund increases in