Friday, October 10, 2008

Why Americans Still Venerate Ronald Reagan


Over the past 30-years, Americans have come to revere Ronald Reagan as the guy who restored their country and their pride. I suspect the Reagan magic has as much to do with how Americans saw only his achievements and not the downside he inflicted, the very hens that are now coming home to roost.

Ronald Reagan did transform the United States. When he took charge America was the world's largest creditor nation. That's right, America was a country that loaned money to other, poorer countries. When Reagan finally left eight years later he had transformed the United States into the world's largest debtor nation.

Ronald Reagan launched America onto the path of continuously living beyond its means. Every previous president since WWII had reduced the government debt as a percentage of GDP. Each and every one of them, Republican and Democratic. Reagan changed all that, sending the debt/GDP ratio soaring.

I think the secret of Reagan's veneration, however, is that when he sold out his nation's real wealth, its fiscal integrity, he left a country that was able to continue to borrow vast sums for decades to come. It was in pursuit of Reagan's fiscal legacy that Bush Jr. managed to double the federal government's debt to what will be a staggering $11-trillion by the time he packs up his crayons in January.

It was Reagan who tought the American people that paying for their government was wrong, that taxes were bad. It was Reagan who, with the aid of his conjurer Stockman, pulled the wool over his people's eyes with nonsense about "supply side economics" and the "trickle down" theory of tax cuts for the rich.

It was Reagan who launched the transformation of the American economy from an industrial driven engine to a financialized economy in which financial services - banking, stocks and insurance - became the largest component of the American economy while its industrial base was packaged up and shipped abroad.

It was Reagan who pushed for massive federal deregulation, a mission that was taken up with gusto by Bush/Cheney. It was the union rep Reagan who turned union buster and drove American labour into the ground.

Debt, deficits, foreign borrowings, deregulation, de-industrialization, financialization, tax cuts for the rich - everything Reagan mapped out has brought America to where it is today. His directing hand is in everything that has gone so horribly wrong today in the United States.

And yet the American people continue to revere Ronald Reagan and venerate his legacy. Astonishing.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ronnie Ray-Gun's popularity with the right has more to do with advertising and propaganda than achievement. Other leaders have done the same (and I'll quit now before violating Godwin's Law)...

The Mound of Sound said...

See what you did? You sent me off in a quest to discover Godwin's Law. Nice point. cheers