"He talked more than he did. Still, the talk mattered and resonates today. Welfare reform, entitlement reform, tax cuts, a balanced budget, a crime crackdown featuring support - even eagerness - for the death penalty, a rallying against family breakdown." Though most of these initiatives are fundamentally rightwing, "Both parties wanted to do those things after Reagan took a crack at them. Yet for the conservatives who regard his vision as the essential truth, the devil has been in the details - rising homelessness during years of growth, programs Americans do not want touched when push comes to shove, and exploding deficits left for successors to tame. Andy Kohut, head of the Pew Research Center, has little doubt Reagan edged Americans to the right in a way that endured." One that endured long enough to give rise to the fascist Bush regime that, more than any other presidency, has undermined every principle upon which America was founded.
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/nation/8857733.htm