The "Appeal" and Legacy of Ronald Reagan

Time for change

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Sat Jan-19-08 06:36 PM
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The "Appeal" and Legacy of Ronald Reagan

Edited on Sat Jan-19-08 07:26 PM by Time for change

Barack Obama recently stirred up a good deal of controversy by talking about Ronald Reagan in an apparently favorable light. Here are some excerpts:

I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.

This is not a one time incident. Obama also mentions Reagan in his book, �The Audacity of Hope�. After saying that he was disturbed by Reagan�s election in 1980 and his assaults on the poor, Obama continues:

I understood his appeal. That Reagan�s message found such a receptive audience spoke not only to his skills as a communicator; it also spoke to the failures of liberal government� For the fact was that government at every level had become too cavalier about spending taxpayer money� A lot of liberal rhetoric did seem to value rights and entitlements over duties and responsibilities� Nevertheless, by promising to side with those who worked hard, obeyed the law, cared for their families, and loved their country, Reagan offered Americans a sense of a common purpose that liberals seemed no longer able to muster�.

Some of Obama�s defenders make the case that quotes like these don�t necessarily imply admiration for Reagan or his policies. Rather, they claim, comments like these indicate admiration only for Reagan�s political or communication skills.

Many liberals, including me, aren�t convinced. Obama has said several things that many of us believe express contempt for liberals and their ideas � such as what I discuss in this post. Also, these Obama statements seem much like the kind of rhetorical device that George Bush frequently used to cause the American people believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9-11 attacks on our country. He never actually explicitly said that. But by repeatedly mentioning the two in the same speeches and even the same sentences he left no doubt as to what his point was. In the same way, these Obama words and speeches about Reagan appear to be meant to appeal to Reagan admirers while at the same time allowing just enough wiggle room that he can claim to fellow Democrats that he really doesn�t admire Reagan himself or his policies.

This is an important issue. If Obama has a fondness for Ronald Reagan or his policies I think that this is something that Democrats should give serious consideration before choosing him to be their nominee for president. So let�s take a closer look at how Obama�s comments about Reagan mesh with the reality of Reagan�s political career:

Reagan�s �appeal� to the American people

Some of Obama�s excerpts noted above speak of Reagan�s �appeal�, including �I understood his appeal� and �He just tapped into what people were already feeling�.

What did that �appeal� consist of? Paul Krugman discusses this in his book, �The Conscience of a Liberal�, in his discussion of how the Democratic Party lost the votes of Southern whites through appeals to racism. He notes Reagan�s bogus story introducing the term �welfare queen� and the kickoff of his 1980 presidential campaign emphasizing �states rights�. He concludes:

By 1980 Reagan could win Southern states with thinly disguised appeals to segregationist sentiment, while Democrats were ever more firmly linked to civil rights and affirmative action�

Peter Dreier discusses the details of Reagan�s bogus �welfare queen� story, which he characterizes as an assault on the poor. Whether this represented an assault of the poor or an appeal to racism hardly matters in my opinion. Either way, it�s contemptible and I have serious qualms about anyone who expresses admiration for that kind of �appeal�.

During his stump speeches while dutifully promising to roll back welfare, Reagan often told the story of a so-called �welfare queen� in Chicago who drove a Cadillac and had ripped off $150,000 from the government using 80 aliases, 30 addresses, a dozen social security cards and four fictional dead husbands. Journalists searched for this �welfare cheat� in the hopes of interviewing her and discovered that she didn�t exist. The imagery of �welfare cheats� that persists to this day helped lay the groundwork for the 1996 welfare reform law�

Reagan�s emphasis on �State�s Rights� to start off his 1980 campaign was doubtlessly an appeal to racism:

Why would the former governor of a western state choose a small southern town whose only claim to fame historically was the scandalous racially charged murder of three civil rights workers, as the place to deliver this message of state�s rights?

Anyone who�s studied the civil war for any length of time knows that the term �state�s rights� in the south is the euphemistic way that some southerners use to define the central cause of the civil war. Do a quick Google search on the term state�s rights and see what kind of sites you find. Confederate flags abound. These sites claim that the civil war was not about slavery, it was about state�s rights. The subtext: The civil war was about a state�s right to treat people as property if they want to�.. about a state�s right to discriminate based on race�if that�s what they determine is in their best interest.

�Reagan put us on a fundamentally different path�

Obama is absolutely correct that Reagan put us on a fundamentally different path. Most importantly, he began the dismantling of FDR�s New Deal, which had served to lift tens of millions of Americans out of poverty and achieve levels of income equality never previously seen in our country.

This chart shows median family income levels, beginning in 1947, when accurate statistics on this issue first became available. With the top marginal tax rate approaching 90% at this time, median family income rose steadily (in 2005 dollars) from $22,499 in 1947 to more than double that, $47,173 in 1980. Then, for the next 25 years, except for some moderate growth during the Clinton years, there was almost no growth in median income at all, which rose only to $56,194 by 2005 (85% of that growth accounted for during the Clinton years). As Paul Krugman notes, this period coincides with �the greatest sustained economic boom in U.S. history�.

What did Reagan do to help end this boom? In a nutshell, virtually all of his economic policies were meant to favor the rich at the expense of the poor and the middle class.

First, let�s consider labor unions. Labor unions are a great means for reducing income inequality because they empower ordinary workers with the means of negotiating fair wages and benefits in relation to their more wealthy and powerful employers. They not only raise wages and benefits for their members, but do the same for non-members as well, since they provide all employers with incentives for offering fair wages, lest their members be tempted to join unions. Table 1 in this article shows that prior to FDR�s presidency the highest percentage of nonagricultural U.S. workers who were members of labor unions was about 10%. That percent rose precipitously during FDR�s presidency and remained at close to 30% for several decades thereafter. However, with the anti-labor policies of the Reagan administration, the percent of workers in unions declined precipitously. And today only 13% of American workers belong to labor unions � one of the lowest if not the lowest rates of union membership among the industrialized nations of the world.

Peter Dreier notes the numerous Reagan budget cuts affecting the poor and middle class:

Reagan eliminated general revenue sharing to cities, slashed funding for public service jobs and job training, almost dismantled federally funded legal services for the poor, cut the anti-poverty Community Development Block Grant program and reduced funds for public transit�These cutbacks had a disastrous effect on cities with high levels of poverty� The consequences were devastating to urban schools and libraries, municipal hospitals and clinics, and sanitation, police and fire departments � many of which had to shut their doors�The most dramatic cut in domestic spending during the Reagan years was for low-income housing subsidies. Reagan appointed a housing task force dominated by politically connected developers, landlords and bankers� For the next few years he sought to eliminate federal housing assistance to the poor altogether. The number of homeless people� by the late 1980s had swollen to 600,000 on any given night.

Disparaging of liberals as part and parcel of expressing admiration for Reagan

In the same breath as he expresses admiration for Ronald Reagan, Obama disparages liberals. And why not? After all, how can one plausibly express admiration for Ronald Reagan without disparaging liberals?

First consider Obama�s reference to �the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s�. What excesses is he talking about? Certainly he couldn�t be referring to the greatest equalization of income in American history, and what Paul Krugman describes as the greatest economic boom in U.S. history. Is he talking about the disturbances associated with the Civil Rights movement or the voting rights movement or protests against the Vietnam War? These are all causes about which liberals are justifiably proud � IMHO. Clearly Obama appeals to conservatives when he talks about �the excesses of the 60s and 70s.� I think that the rest of us deserve to know what he is referring to when he uses those words.

What about �Government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability�� and �Government at every level had become too cavalier about spending taxpayer money�? These are frequently espoused right wing talking points that stereotype the �tax and spend liberal�. So again, I ask Obama what liberal programs he thinks government was spending too much money on during this period of time. I think that Democrats who are considering voting for him to be the Democratic nominee for President have the right to know that. Furthermore, I find it most odd that he would criticize Democrats for spending too much money in the same paragraph where he praises Ronald Reagan, of all people. Consider this graph which shows the change in our national debt by year:

Note the two huge mountains of increasing national debt in this picture. One began with the Reagan administration and went on for the 12 years of Reagan and Bush I presidencies. Then following 8 years of precipitous decrease in the rate of debt accumulation, the onset of the Bush II presidency was marked by another, even more precipitous increase in debt accumulation than was the Reagan presidency. Shouldn�t this debunk the stereotype of the �tax and spend� liberal? And why is a Democratic candidate for President propagating this stereotype?

And what does Obama mean by �Reagan offered Americans a sense of a common purpose that liberals seemed no longer able to muster��? What common purpose is that? Is he talking about tax cuts for the rich and widening income disparity? Is he referring to the slashing of numerous social programs described above? Is he talking about the tremendous expansion of our national debt? Or maybe he�s referring to Reagan�s secret Contra War, in which he continued to fund right wing death squads despite the expressed prohibition of Congress.

How the other two leading Democratic candidates stand on this issue

Hillary Clinton hasn�t said as much about this as Obama, but she has posted on her website an article that notes that she considers Ronald Reagan to be one of her favorite American Presidents. There has been some disagreement over the accuracy that article. However, it seems obvious to me that it couldn�t be too far from the truth, since Senator Clinton put it on her website without any disclaimers regarding her quoted opinions.

I don�t think that anyone needed to hear John Edwards talk about this issue in order to know how he felt about it. John Edwards has made it abundantly clear that he is vehemently against everything that Ronald Reagan stood for. Here are his recent words on the subject:

I would never use Ronald Reagan as an example of change� You think about what Ronald Reagan did, to America, the American people, to the middle class, to working people. He was openly, openly intolerant of unions and the right to organize� I could promise you this� This president will never use Ronald Reagan as an example.

Amen.