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I voted for Reagan once but never thought he was a great president, good in some ways but not great. Here are some things to put him in prespective in reality and not memory.

Reagan was the most popular president since World War II.

False: Reagan's approval rating, as measured by Gallup, stood at 53 percent when he left office. Bill Clinton's approval rating at the completion of his two terms was 63 percent. Reagans average rating was again 53%, Clinton was 55%(Gallup), basicly a tie due to the margin of error.

Reagan cut taxes.

False: Reagan pushed through a tax cut in 1981. But then, he had to raise taxes in 1982, an increase that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, was substantially larger than Clinton's 1993 tax increase (in percentage of the budget)

Reagan reduced the size of government.

False: The government workforce increased from 2.8 million to 3 million during his tenure.(GAO)

Reagan reduced government spending.

False: Government spending on defense increased. Spending on domestic programs, such as welfare and health and education programs, was cut. Overall, spending increased and our government's debt soared. He doubled the deficit and tripled our national debt.(OMB)

The economy boomed because of Reagan's economic policies or lower taxes and decreased government regulation.

False: Unemployment was 7.5 percent when he took office, averaged 7.5 percent during his term in office and fell to 5.4 percent when his last term expired. Under Clinton unemployment was 7.4 percent when he took office, averaged 5.2 percent and fell to 3.9 percent when he left office. Wages decreased 4.3 percent during Reagan's tenure, according to the Congressional Budget Office and incresed 6.5% under Clinton.

Reagan presided over the longest period of economic expansion in history.

False as a statement but he did do very well coming in third with 92 months behind Kennedy/Johnson at 106 months and Clinton at 120 months according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Overall, he probably did the best he could which in some areas was very good but not so in others. He made me prouder to be a Marine but sad that he did nothing after 200 of my fellow Marines died in Lebanon.

Hopefully, we haven't gotten to the point where good is now taken as great.

Thanks for the truth AVB,
I voted for Reagan, twice, and was happy with his leadership, though I knew all the BS that is said about him, and all the great things he accomplished, was embelished. I still consider him, one of the great presidents, his followers, love to inflate his accomlishments.
Later
Dave (A.K.A. Homebrew)

There's no way to say this without somehow sounding irritable, but here goes...

As the U.S. economy has become more and more complex and interconnected with the rest of the world, the ability of one president to affect economic change during his own term in office has become increasingly difficult. For that reason we have not yet seen the full effect of the Clinton presidency on our national economy.

It is wrong on many levels to compare Reagan with Clinton, but especially wrong to compare the two economies. Clinton benefitted enormously from policies initiated by Reagan during his first term in office.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=6&u=/ap/20040621/ap_on_el_pr/presidents_ap_poll

This doesn't surprise me. I would rate Reagan better for the same reason noted... the affair and how he handled it. If that were to be taken out of the equation though, it would be a tough call, IMO.

Wow! I never thought that, in my lifetime, I would ever defend Ronald Reagan, but here goes:

As others have pointed out, you really can't compare the economy during Reagan's terms vs. the economy during Clinton's term's. I don't think it's a fair and total comparison of presidents.

Clinton, for some reason, is given some credit for 'creating' the economy of the 90's, when in fact, he was merely riding the coat tails of the transition to the information/technology economy. Clinton didn't create Microsoft, Apple, Intel, etc. Those companies, and those like them, were most responsible for the economy of the 90's and the 120 month ecenomic expansion. Perhaps the greatest thing Reagan did for the economy was appoint Alan Greenspan to the Federal Reserve. Greenspan deserves more credit for the economy over that last 17 years than any president.

One thing I learned from the Reagan presidency was that congress controls the budget and the president can only do so much. Taxes go up/down -congress did it. Spending goes up/down -congress did it. You can't give the president too much blame, nor can you let him take too much credit. Perhaps that's why I don't think measuring a president on what happens with the economy is correct. After all, that's not really their job.

Now then-when it comes to standing up to the communists and bringing about the fall of the Soviets, you have to give Reagan full credit. His willingness to stand by the missle defense initiative destroyed the soviet economy and led to it's downfall. Ours has recovered nicely.

matt

Thanks, bassdude. You are correct.

The Russian people are very similar in attitude and outlook to what we are ... the biggest danger, first and perhaps best expressed by JFK was that war between them and us was more likely to be started by accident than by design ... we were able to co-exist with them for a protracted period of time because neither side wanted to initiate action ... both were building up to defend against action ...

The situation we face today is quite different ... there are those who DO want to initiate action ... and they are NOT at all like us in their attitudes and outlooks ... unlike most confrontations throughout history, these ill-wishers, for the most part, are not nation states, but radical individuals who reside wherever a nation state will tolerate their presence ...

Whether we wish to acknowledge it or not, we ARE at war ... the current administration HAS erred in managing our efforts and in not seeking more allies, no doubt about it, but their virtue is that they recognize that this war will not be quickly or easily won and that it may well take decades instead of years for that to happen ... our nameless, faceless enemies are counting heavily on a failure of national will ... they are counting on our tv mentality of wanting to solve all problems within an hour ... they are counting on our own internal divisiveness ... they will be supportive of the candidate for national office who has the weakest perceived will to wage the long term battle that is to come if we are to prevail ...

I find it extremely discouraging to consider choosing between a less than effective manager and one who doesn't wish to manage at all, but to outsource the task and I despair for our future and that of our children and grandchildren ...

Ok, if Carter sucked, Reagan sucked (at certain economic levels), Clinton sucked, and Bush sucks, then who was actually a "good" president?

Paradox = good/effective president

Well you might think all those presidents sucked, but only one distinguished himself by getting sucked....

AVB

good thing you didn't say between 1.63 and 2.17, or we might have had to discuss it further.

Sonny_LSU

harry s truman. he had no personal agenda for wealth and glory, he made the correct decision about the atomic bomb. when he left office, he took no souvineers, never sold out his credentials for speaking engangements, and paid for hinself and rode the train home.

he was a mensch.