Come to think of it, Ronald Reagan’s looking better and better every day. Remember, Reagan did the following as President:
*”…following that initial tax cut, Reagan actually ended up raising taxes – eleven times”
*”…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”
*”Reagan raised taxes to pay for government-run health care”
*”Reagan also raised the gas tax and signed the largest corporate tax increase in history”
*”Reagan both increased spending and, after the initial cut, showed a willingness to raise taxes”
*”His creation of the department of veterans affairs contributed to an increase in the federal workforce of more than 60,000 people during his presidency.”
In addition, Reagan also ended up “expanding rather than scaling back entitlements, Reagan–and Newt Gingrich after him–demonstrated that conservatives could not and would not launch a frontal assault on Social Security, effectively conceding that these cherished New Deal programs were central features of the American polity.”
Bottom line: I’d take Ronald Reagan in a heartbeat over George Allen, Jamie Radtke, Eric Can’tor, or any of these rigid, extremist ideologues who currently call themselves “Republicans” (although they in no way, shape or form resemble anything from the party of Abraham Lincoln, the party of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the party of Gerald Ford, the party of George HW Bush, the party of Bob Dole, or even the party of Richard Nixon). Ronald Reagan, in contrast, was a serious and mature human being, who understood that ideology had a place, but that pragmatism ultimately trumped it when it came to protecting the interests of the United States of America. Today’s Teapublicans clearly don’t understand that. For his sake, I’m just glad that Ronald Reagan isn’t around to see what they’ve done to his party.
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