A Gentleman’s view.

ThinkProgress has compiled a list of the top 10 things conservatives rarely mention when talking about President Reagan:

1. Reagan was a serial tax raiser. As governor of California, Reagan “signed into law the largest tax increase in the history of any state up till then.” Meanwhile, state spending nearly doubled. As president, Reagan “raised taxes in seven of his eight years in office,” including four times in just two years. As former GOP Senator Alan Simpson, who called Reagan “a dear friend,” told NPR, “Ronald Reagan raised taxes 11 times in his administration — I was there.” “Reagan was never afraid to raise taxes,” said historian Douglas Brinkley, who edited Reagan’s memoir. Reagan the anti-tax zealot is “false mythology,” Brinkley said.

2. Reagan nearly tripled the federal budget deficit. During the Reagan years, the debt increased to nearly $3 trillion, “roughly three times as much as the first 80 years of the century had done altogether.” Reagan enacted a major tax cut his first year in office and government revenue dropped off precipitously. Despite the conservative myth that tax cuts somehow increase revenue, the government went deeper into debt and Reagan had to raise taxes just a year after he enacted his tax cut. Despite ten more tax hikes on everything from gasoline to corporate income, Reagan was never able to get the deficit under control.

3. Unemployment soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts. Unemployment jumped to 10.8 percent after Reagan enacted his much-touted tax cut, and it took years for the rate to get back down to its previous level. Meanwhile, income inequality exploded. Despite the myth that Reagan presided over an era of unmatched economic boom for all Americans, Reagan disproportionately taxed the poor and middle class, but the economic growth of the 1980′s did little help them. “Since 1980, median household income has risen only 30 percent, adjusted for inflation, while average incomes at the top have tripled or quadrupled,” the New York Times’ David Leonhardt noted.

4. Reagan grew the size of the federal government tremendously. Reagan promised “to move boldly, decisively, and quickly to control the runaway growth of federal spending,” but federal spending “ballooned” under Reagan. He bailed out Social Security in 1983 after attempting to privatize it, and set up a progressive taxation system to keep it funded into the future. He promised to cut government agencies like the Department of Energy and Education but ended up adding one of the largest — the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, which today has a budget of nearly $90 billion and close to 300,000 employees. He also hiked defense spending by over $100 billion a year to a level not seen since the height of the Vietnam war.

5. Reagan did little to fight a woman’s right to chose. As governor of California in 1967, Reagan signed a bill to liberalize the state’s abortion laws that “resulted in more than a million abortions.” When Reagan ran for president, he advocated a constitutional amendment that would have prohibited all abortions except when necessary to save the life of the mother, but once in office, he “never seriously pursued” curbing choice.

6. Reagan was a “bellicose peacenik.” He wrote in his memoirs that “[m]y dream…became a world free of nuclear weapons.” “This vision stemmed from the president’s belief that the biblical account of Armageddon prophesied nuclear war — and that apocalypse could be averted if everyone, especially the Soviets, eliminated nuclear weapons,” the Washington Monthly noted. And Reagan’s military buildup was meant to crush the Soviet Union, but “also to put the United States in a stronger position from which to establish effective arms control” for the the entire world — a vision acted out by Regean’s vice president, George H.W. Bush, when he became president.

7. Reagan gave amnesty to 3 million undocumented immigrants. Reagan signed into law a bill that made any immigrant who had entered the country before 1982 eligible for amnesty. The bill was sold as a crackdown, but its tough sanctions on employers who hired undocumented immigrants were removed before final passage. The bill helped 3 million people and millions more family members gain American residency. It has since become a source of major embarrassment for conservatives.

8. Reagan illegally funneled weapons to Iran. Reagan and other senior U.S. officials secretly sold arms to officials in Iran, which was subject to a an arms embargo at the time, in exchange for American hostages. Some funds from the illegal arms sales also went to fund anti-Communist rebels in Nicaragua — something Congress had already prohibited the administration from doing. When the deals went public, the Iran-Contra Affair, as it came to be know, was an enormous political scandal that forced several senior administration officials to resign.

9. Reagan vetoed a comprehensive anti-Apartheid act. which placed sanctions on South Africa and cut off all American trade with the country. Reagan’s veto was overridden by the Republican-controlled Senate. Reagan responded by saying “I deeply regret that Congress has seen fit to override my veto,” saying that the law “will not solve the serious problems that plague that country.”

10. Reagan helped create the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. Reagan fought a proxy war with the Soviet Union by training, arming, equipping, and funding Islamist mujahidin fighters in Afghanistan. Reagan funneled billions of dollars, along with top-secret intelligence and sophisticated weaponry to these fighters through the Pakistani intelligence service. The Talbian and Osama Bin Laden — a prominent mujahidin commander — emerged from these mujahidin groups Reagan helped create, and U.S. policy towards Pakistan remains strained because of the intelligence services’ close relations to these fighters. In fact, Reagan’s decision to continue the proxy war after the Soviets were willing to retreat played a direct role in Bin Laden’s ascendency.

Tomorrow will mark the 100th anniversary of President Reagan’s birth, and all week, conservatives have been trying to outdo each others’ remembrances of the great conservative icon. Senate Republicans spent much of Thursday singing Reagan’s praise from the Senate floor, while conservative publications have been running non-stop commemorations. Meanwhile the Republican National Committee and former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich are hoping to make few bucks off the Gipper’s centennial.

But Reagan was not the man conservatives claim he was. This image of Reagan as a conservative superhero is myth, created to untie the various factions of the right behind a common leader. In reality, Reagan was no conservative ideologue or flawless commander-in-chief. Reagan regularly strayed from conservative dogma — he raised taxes eleven times as president while tripling the deficit — and he often ended up on the wrong side of history, like when he vetoed an Anti-Apartheid bill.

The Mask of A False God: The Real Record of Ronald Reagan
Posted on February 6, 2011 by Rmuse

Conservatives this week have been on a lying love-fest to commemorate the 100th birthday of Republicans’ man-turned-god, Ronald Reagan. Everyone from Sarah Palin to Newt Gingrich to Republican Senators on the floor of the Senate have praised the addle-brained B-movie actor-turned-governor and then President as the ideal of conservatism. Although Reagan is touted as the ultimate conservative, his record as governor of California and President belies the neo-conservative narrative of low taxes and small government. What Reagan did accomplish was to usher in an era of business first, people second that has continued to 2011, and is singularly responsible for the ongoing destruction of the middle-class and elevation of corporatism and theocracy to the detriment of America.

Ronald Reagan raised taxes 11 times, nearly tripled the federal budget deficit, gave amnesty to 3 million undocumented immigrants and their families, increased the size of the federal government, and presided over an unemployment increase after cutting taxes for the rich but raising them for the middle class and the poor. Republicans and conservative groups are hard-pressed to admit to those aspects of the Reagan presidency, but regardless their efforts to rewrite history, the records are there for all to see.

During the Reagan presidency, he was responsible for helping to destroy unions for big business and is directly responsible for mining disasters in West Virginia where he assisted Don Blankenship of Massey Energy to prevent unions from protecting coal miners. Despite historical truth that union membership helped create the middle class in America starting after the Second World War, Republicans are continuing their narrative that unions are responsible for the economic woes the country is facing today.

The conservative notion that cutting taxes creates jobs and increases revenue is ongoing from the Reagan era and during his first year in office when he cut taxes, the government went deeper into debt and despite raising taxes 10 more times he was never able to rein in the federal deficit. His economic policies are still the stuff of legend for conservatives, but instead of helping American families, he was responsible for an income disparity that saw average incomes for the top wage earners triple or quadruple while the median income has risen only 30% (adjusted for inflation).

The rise of the religious right in America is in part due to Reagan’s deal with the devil (moral majority) by giving them a voice and a foothold in politics in exchange for their voting bloc. Reagan’s unholy alliance with the likes of Jerry Falwell has been a thorn in the side of women’s rights and religious freedom that continues to this day with Republicans making every attempt to restrict a woman’s right to choose in the 112th Congress.

What must be a source of embarrassment for Republicans and conservatives is Reagan’s creation of the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan. Reagan was responsible for funding, training, arming, and equipping the Islamist mujahidin in Afghanistan as a means of combatting the former Soviet Union. Reagan was responsible for channeling billions of dollars and sophisticated weapons through Pakistan’s intelligence agency that is still responsible for helping the Taliban to kill Americans in Afghanistan and the border region with Pakistan.

It is curious why Republicans have elevated Ronald Reagan to god-like status when history shows he presided over what is arguably a period of criminal activity and economic despair for millions of Americans. Reagan’s administration illegally sold arms to Iranian officials in exchange for American hostages despite an arms embargo in place at the time. If it wasn’t bad enough selling arms illegally, Reagan secretly used some of the proceeds to fund anti-Communist rebels in Nicaragua that was directly prohibited by Congress.

Ronald Reagan’s tenure as California governor does nothing to add to his mystique as a humanitarian because he committed one of the worst atrocities on mentally ill Californians that the State is still dealing with today. Reagan closed all of California’s State Hospitals that were the primary care mental health facilities, and put the patients on the streets without any care or safety nets. California’s streets are still the home for those mental patients who have not since died from lack of care or are not in prison. Besides putting the mentally ill on the streets, Reagan’s actions put thousands of health professionals out of a job further costing the state tax revenue.

Republicans can profess Ronald Reagan’s greatness as the epitome of conservative idealism but they are in denial of the truth about the man. His lack of political experience allowed his underlings and corporate masters to dictate policy that America is still suffering from in 2011. He was not a fiscal conservative and besides raising taxes, he increased the size of the federal government much like subsequent Republican administrations and it has cost the American people dearly.

Perhaps Republicans are not in denial and are counting on memory loss from those who lived through the Reagan years or the ignorance of young Republicans who worship the image of Reagan instead of his horrendous record. When one considers the damage that Reagan allowed his Cabinet to wreak on America because his brain had turned to mush, the man conservatives idolize is just a puppet for corporations and banks like Republicans today. Reagan’s legacy will forever be cemented in American lore as a bad president and destroyer of the American dream and no amount of revisionist history will change that.

The man is dead, but his record lives on for truth-seekers to refer to when looking for the origin of today’s conservative movement. History is supposed to be the great teacher so intelligent human beings do not repeat past mistakes, but like the addle-brained half-wit Ronald Reagan, Republicans in 2011 are not intelligent and are apt to repeat the same failed policies of their idol and it continues to be a source of shame for decent Americans. Republicans could certainly find a better leader to unite behind than a mentally challenged B-movie actor, but then again, Republicans are all just B-movie actors and bad for America.

© 2011, agentleman. All rights reserved.