Defending the Reagan Legacy:
Rejecting Revisionist History
by: Mickey G. Craig
INTRODUCTION
A fresh look at the 1980's and the Reagan Legacy is necessary because the cultural elite has unfairly portrayed them and him as an unmitigated failure.The cultural elite, including, the major media, most academics, and the Hollywood entertainment industry have portrayed the '80s as a decade of failure and setbacks. They have portrayed Ronald Reagan as a likable idiot out of touch with reality, sleepwalking through history.
With respect to the economy, the decade of Ronald Reagan is depicted as a decade of greed, with the rich benefiting at the expense of the poor and middle class and at the expense of our children due to unprecedented deficits. With respect to social issues, Reagan is portrayed as an insensitive and backward bigot and sexist who tried to roll back the civil rights gains made by minorities and women in the last thirty years through the appointment of judges who were outside the mainstream.
In foreign affairs, where progress cannot be denied, Reagan's role has been ignored and the entire credit has been given to Mikhail Gorbachev. Following this attempt to rewrite history, the Clinton campaign and the Clinton administration have consistently and repeatedly said that the rich got richer, the poor got poorer, the middle class works more for less, economic prosperity in the '80s was an illusion foisted on an unwitting public through disastrous deficit spending and record debts, and finally that the nation was insidiously divided along racial lines and abortions were made more difficult to obtain. This theme, the failure of the '80s, is perhaps the only consistent theme between Clinton's campaign and Clinton's administration.
To repeat, that theme is that the twelve years prior to January 20, 1993, were horrible years for America. Throughout his presidential campaign and through the first six months of his Presidency, Clinton has argued that he must reverse the awful policies of the last twelve years. Clinton's attempt and the cultural elite's attempt to rewrite history must be countered. Whether Ronald Reagan ranks in greatness with Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Lincoln remains a question for a future generation. However, his record should not be permitted to be distorted simply because his rhetoric and actions were so antagonistic to those who hold near and dear the Great Society, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, and the New Left. In the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, "Let facts be submitted to a candid world."
To begin to understand the significance and legacy of Ronald Reagan it is necessary simply to recall the condition of the country in the years 1979 and 1980, the last two years of the Carter Presidency.The country was, according to its Chief Executive, mired in a spiritual malaise. In foreign affairs, the country was treated with contempt by petty tyrants and emirs around the world. The Soviet Union or their proxies were on the march in Angola, Vietnam, Cuba, Ethiopia, Syria, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Peru, and, of course, Afghanistan. In America and Western Europe, the Soviets orchestrated campaigns for a nuclear freeze and against strengthening NATO. The Warsaw Pact nations remained captive. In economic affairs, the country was suffering double-digit inflation, double-digit interest rates, and high unemployment. Consumers were sitting in gasoline lines, experiencing and "energy crisis." On social issues, activist judges routinely legislated busing of children, abortion, preferential treatment for minorities, no school prayer, no Christmas crèches on public facilities, and even occasionally raised our taxes. In the last year of his presidency, Carter was preoccupied by Khomeini holding American hostages in Iran. The futility of his presidency was brought home when the American armed forces, under Carter's leadership, proved unable to fly six helicopters across the desert of southern Iran. These are the circumstances, we must remember, which Ronald Reagan inherited when he became President on January 20, 1981. Reagan succeeded in reversing all of these trends.
The legacy of Ronald Reagan is manifold.Perhaps the least appreciated or most subtle part of the Reagan legacy is his unbounded optimism and faith that America's future is bright as long as America remains true to its principles. To Reagan, as he reiterated at the 1992 Republican National Convention, America can be forever young. Ronald Reagan restored hope in contrast to malaise. He made us proud to be Americans and optimistic that hard work would be rewarded by a brighter future. In moments of crisis, he always managed to reassure the American people through his rhetoric or even wit. Whether it was a crisis such as the firing of PATCO employees, remembering the boys of Pointe du Hoc, the Challenger disaster, his dealings with the Soviets, or simply an off-the-cuff remark during a Presidential debate or press conference, Reagan seemed to have the ability to reassure the American people that he was in charge. For example, who can forget his "all things considered, I'd rather be in Philadelphia" following the assassination attempt in March 1981, as the nation prepared to watch the NCAA basketball Final Four in Philadelphia? One is tempted to say that Reagan's buoyant optimism and his self-deprecating wit trickled down and infected the overwhelming majority of the American people. Yet his legacy is seen even more clearly by focusing on three areas: Foreign Affairs, Economics, and Social Issues.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Let us begin with Foreign Affairs.As a candidate in 1980, Ronald Reagan promised to rebuild America's armed forces in order to face the most immediate threat to American freedom, the communist Soviet Union. Reagan delivered on this promise in such a manner that today the threat no longer exists. The Reagan doctrine was a decisive departure from the foreign policy initiatives of Carter and even Ford and Nixon. According to Ed Meese, the Reagan doctrine had six guiding principles informing its effort to win the Cold War with the Soviet Union.1" First, there was no moral equivalence between the Soviet Union and the United States of America. America was good (not perfect, just good) and the Soviet Union was evil. When Reagan addressed a gathering of Evangelical Christians in Florida in 1983, he called the Soviet Union the evil empire. In Reagan's view, freedom and limited government were qualitatively superior to tyranny and totalitarian government. The media and academics howled with contempt and ridicule. (Hollywood produced doomsday movies aimed not so subtlety at demonstrating that the greatest threat to world peace was the narrow, naive bigots who believed in good and evil and the moral superiority of the U.S.) How could Reagan be so naive as to believe in good and evil? According to the cultural elite, values, such as judgments regarding good and evil, are relative and subjective. But Reagan believed, as did and do most Americans, that there is a true and objective standard of right and wrong, which ought to inform public policy, including foreign affairs. Reagan thus injected a hardheaded moralism into the geopolitical equation of following national interest.
Following this first principle, which was the linch-pin of his policy, came the second principle of Reagan's foreign policy: peace through strength. Peace and American freedom could only be assured through strength. American strength required a major effort to rebuild America's military might.2 Reagan believed that America must stand up to and stop Soviet expansion, and only a strong military force could do this. Third, Reagan recognized a weakness in the Soviet regime which he intended to push. He believed, rightly, that the Soviets ruled a captive and unwilling people and that the Soviet economy, contrary to many economists, was inherently weak. Fourth, Reagan believed that if America forced the Soviets into an arms race they would be forced to choose between their global ambitions and their domestic problems. This pressure on the Soviet economy would induce not only domestic turmoil but also would make it more difficult for the Soviets to support their colonies around the world.Fifth, Reagan believed that the West should stop putting artificial restraints on itself in dealing with the Soviets and engage in wholesale competition with the Soviets. This meant not only rebuilding our military but also supporting anticommunist resistance forces around the world"in Poland, Angola, Afghanistan, and Nicaragua, for example"and also giving greater emphasis to the scientific/technological superiority which America enjoyed, most notably S.D.I., the Strategic Defense Initiative. Sixth, and finally, the West should stop bailing the Soviets out of their economic and technological problems. This meant an end to one-sided arms agreements, cutting back on technology transfers, an end to subsidized credit agreements, and an end to one-sided business agreements. Reversing the trends of the 1970s, these six principles, flowing from the theoretical to the practical and vice versa, formed an integrated policy whose purpose was to face down and eventually defeat the Soviet Union.
Reagan sincerely believed that Soviet Communism was destined for the ash-heap of history.As he said in 1983: "I believe that communism is another sad, bizarre chapter in history whose last pages even now are being written." Even Reagan's most ardent admirers in 1983 could not understand his optimism. He believed that a strong military would put pressures on the corrupt and inherently weak domestic institutions of the Soviets in such a manner that they would be unable to continue their global ambitions and that the system would eventually collapse completely. Reagan reversed the policy of accommodation and appeasement which had infected arms control negotiations for years; had permitted technology transfers and monetary credits; and had discouraged America from supporting freedom fighters against Soviet domination in its communist colonies. The pressures brought to bear on the Soviets by Reagan's policy led to attempts by Gorbachev to sidetrack and even kill much of Reagan's program, especially the S.D.I. program. Gorbachev did not attempt this because he was afraid America was spending money on a program which wouldn't work. Gorbachev did this because he and his generals believed that S.D.I. would work and thus make the Soviet's missile system obsolete. If this happened, then the Soviets would have to engage in an even more expensive arms race which would bankrupt the Soviets, expose their domestic weakness and expose their tenuous hold on their many colonies. According to many scholars, especially those from the former Soviet Union, S.D.I. was the straw that broke the camel's back of Soviet communism. In reaction to Reagan's policy, Glasnost and Perestroika were invented. These new policies were desperate attempts to save the Soviet political system by trying to appease Western public opinion and also to unleash Soviet economic growth. Needless to say Gorbachev failed and the Soviet Union crumbled.
The fruits of Reagan's policy were borne during the Bush Administration.And now, while America faces many different foreign policy challenges in the '90s, we all can be and should be thankful that Reagan reversed the policies of the '70s, that we no longer face a threat from the Soviet Union and that the nations of Eastern Europe and the other Soviet proxies are free. It is unnecessary to go into detail regarding Reagan's other foreign policy successes. He restored pride in the American armed forces, he deployed Pershing missiles in Western Europe, he liberated Grenada, he supported Solidarity in Poland, he supported the Contras in Nicaragua, he dealt blows to terrorism, especially Ghadaffi's Libya, he left a legacy to Bush which led to the victory in Operation Desert Storm, etc. While the cultural elite has managed to ignore this part of the Reagan legacy, Margaret Thatcher, Reagan's most courageous and supportive ally through the '80s, summed it up in one sentence in a speech delivered at the Heritage Foundation in 1991: "Ronald Reagan won the Cold War without firing a single shot."
ECONOMIC AFFAIRS
Turning next to Reagan's legacy in economic affairs, it is noteworthy that his contribution here, far from being ignored, has been distorted beyond recognition. According to the mainstream media and the Democratic Party, all of the domestic problems which the country faces today are due to Reagan's short-sighted economic policies. The mantra runs thus: our inability to spend money to address current problems is due to the large deficits and record debts run up in the '80s. The record deficits and debt are due to the Reagan tax cuts which only benefited the greedy super rich. 3
In order to understand Reagan's legacy in economic affairs, it is necessary to look once again in more detail at the situation which Reagan inherited when he took office in January 1981. The last years of the '70s and early '80s were witness to a global recession, bewildering inflation, and stagnant productivity. In the United States, Americans were unnerved by the fact that the country had suffered double-digit inflation in 1974 and then for three years running in 1979, 1980, and 1981. They were bewildered by sky-rocketing interest rates, as the prime rate hit 19.77% in April 1980 and peaked at 21.5% in December 1980. Unemployment was running uncharacteristically high as well, 7.1% in 1980. Economic growth was anemic, indeed, the Gross National Product had a negative growth rate of 0.2% in 1980.4 These trends all changed dramatically during the Reagan years.
According to Ed Meese5 when Reagan entered office in January 1981, he had two primary legislative objectives which he intended to push: military rearmament and tax cuts. The Reagan Administration understood the office of President to be inherently weak.6 Thus a newly elected President must not only act quickly but also focus on one or perhaps two major legislative objectives if he hopes to have a major impact. To delay or to try to do too much would destroy the effectiveness of the Reagan Presidency. This is especially true when the opposition party controls one of the houses of the legislative branch.
Thus Reagan focused, during the first months of his Presidency, on two issues and allowed all others to remain on the legislative backburner.He worked very hard to pass an economic package which included as its main plank the reduction of marginal tax rates in order to provide incentives for economic growth. Aside from lowering marginal tax rates, the main goals of Reagan's economic plan were to cut the capital gains tax rate and the corporate income tax rate, to index the income tax brackets to inflation (this did not go into effect until 1985), and to reduce federal regulation significantly. 7 This was the plan on which Reagan had campaigned, and he intended to follow through on it. The Reagan tax cut plan had been to provide a 30% reduction in marginal tax rates in one year. However, as implemented, the plan became a 25% reduction over three years. The first tax cut, only 5%, did not go into effect until January 1983 and then there were 10% cuts in marginal rates the next two years. When the tax cuts did finally take effect, the Gross National Product grew by 3.6% in 1983 and hit 6.8% in 1984. Reagan's incentive tax program led to the longest peacetime expansion in American economic history. During those seven plus years of economic growth, the American economy grew by 31%, in effect adding an economy the size of West Germany to the American economy.
Manufacturing grew by 48%, 18.4 million jobs were created, per capita income grew by 20%, and exports grew by 92.6%.8 The economic expansion lasted 93 months, ending only in July, 1990, when Reagan's policies were abandoned and higher marginal rates were adopted in the ill-fated Budget Reduction Agreement between President Bush and a gleeful Democratic Congress. The seven fat years ended only when the policies of Ronald Reagan were abandoned.
In addition to tax cuts to spur economic growth, Reagan encouraged Federal Reserve Chairman, Paul Volcker, to adopt a policy of tight money in order to reduce inflation.Low inflation would then lead to lower interest rates. The Federal Reserve did this with a vengeance beginning in 1981. Volcker stamped out inflation in one year. According to Bartley, this tight money policy plus the delay in the implementation of the tax cuts were the primary causes of the 1981-82 recession. In fact, Bartley argues that the 1981-82 recession was preeminently a monetary event.9 It is remarkable that Ronald Reagan's tax cuts are blamed for the recession of 1981-1982 when the tax cuts did not go into effect until after the recession. Rather, recession was the price the nation had to pay to squeeze inflation out of the economy. It is also remarkable that Reagan's policies are blamed for the economic slowdown of the early 1990s when his policies had been abandoned or radically altered. Even more remarkable is that he receives no credit for the extraordinary economic growth which occurred in the years 1983 to 1990. Reagan understood clearly the path to economic growth, low inflation and low interest rates. He fought tooth and nail with the Democratic Congress and the many pre-Reagan Republicans who occupied leadership positions in the U.S. Senate in the early 1980s to implement his plan. Yet when his plan was implemented it worked. America prospered as never before.
Today, thanks in large measure to H. Ross Perot, the annual deficit and the national debt dominate all domestic politics.It must be admitted that during the 1980s, the national debt tripled, from approximately $1 trillion to $3 trillion. Who bears responsibility for these record deficits and dramatic increase in the national debt? Was this solely Ronald Reagan's fault? The first myth which must be destroyed is that the tax cuts caused the deficits. While taxes were cut, revenue paid to the Federal Government increased dramatically during the 1980s. While laughed out of the court of public opinion, the Laffer Curve proved true.10 During the 1980s, revenues paid to the Federal Government grew dramatically, from $517.1 billion in 1980 to $1,031.3 billion in 1990. In ten years, taxes/revenue paid to the Federal Government increased $514.2 billion, an increase of 99%. The deficit and accumulated national debt did not and does not exist because the Reagan tax cuts have starved the Federal Government of revenue. Rather, the deficits resulted and the debt accumulated because Federal Government spending increased even faster than revenues increased. In 1980, the Federal Government spent $590.9 billion. In 1990, the Federal Government spent $1,251.7 billion. In ten years, expenditures by the Federal Government increased by $660.8 billion.
Let there be no mistake, the national debt and the annual deficit continues not because the American people pay too little in taxes, but because the Federal Government spends too much.During his tenure in office, Reagan did manage to slow the rate of growth of the Federal Government. During the 1980s, the deficit actually fell from 6.3% of GNP to 3.0% of GNP, a trend which continued until the Gramm-Rudman Deficit Reduction Act was abandoned in 1990. Also, Reagan managed to limit the annual domestic spending increases to an average of 1% a year during his presidency. By contrast, annual domestic spending increased by 9% under JFK, 5.5% under LBJ, 8.5% under Nixon, 5% under Ford, 3.5% under Carter, and 10% under Bush.11 The answer to the deficit problem is clear. The deficit must be dealt with by restraining expenditures by the Federal Government. Expenditures must be controlled through the elimination of some programs, the freezing of others, and by limiting the rate of growth of others to less than the overall economic growth of the country. While a modest downsizing of the Federal Government, of say 4-5%, would be portrayed as a radical policy by the mainstream media, it is the only way to handle the deficit problem in a responsible way. Republicans should remember that while an executive branch, department, commission, or agency may be a nice place to employ loyal Republicans during a Republican Administration, that it is better to eliminate the agency rather than simply slow its growth"because if it isn't eliminated someday the Democrats will take over again.
Reagan's inability to balance the budget is less a failure of his economic policy than it is a failure of the GOP to gain control of both houses of the U.S. Congress. Throughout Reagan's tenure in office, in fact since 1954, the Democrats controlled the U.S. House of Representatives. Reagan faced the necessity of compromise with the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. While he could muster majorities in the first years of his Presidency for tax cuts and increased military spending, he could not muster majorities to eliminate the many programs he had campaigned to abolish. This is the price he paid for being unable to wrest control of the House of Representatives from Tip O'Neill and the Democrats.
In addition, the most important provisions of the Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 had removed the President's impoundment powers.The President's ability to impound funds had been the main way throughout American history in which the President had controlled the overall level of spending of the Federal Government. This power was taken away from the President in 1974, at the height of Watergate. In fact, it is more than coincidental that since the passage of that Act the Federal Government has been running large deficits.12 Thus Reagan could not impound funds to control the overall level of spending of the Federal Government. He could recommend rescissions of spending he believed unnecessary. However, if Congress did not vote to agree with rescission, he had to spend the money. Most of the rescissions of spending which Reagan sent to Congress under the 1974 Act were simply ignored thus forcing Reagan to spend the money anyway. During the 1980s, Congress perfected the art of presenting Reagan with last minute budgets and continuing appropriations so that he was often faced with signing a bloated budget or shutting down the Federal Government. Also, one must remember that except for the first year of his presidency Reagan's budgets were always declared dead on arrival.
Reagan shares the responsibility for the deficits and the national debt.Yet Reagan is responsible for the deficits and debt only insofar as he is responsible for not defeating the Democrats in the House of Representatives and exercising greater control over his Party in the Senate. It is easy by hindsight to say that Reagan should have used the 1984 election to make Congress the issue and attempt a fundamental realignment of American politics rather than running a campaign which aimed to win all fifty states for the President with no real connection with the campaigns Republicans were running to challenge entrenched incumbent House and Senate Democrats. However difficult and risky the political lesson might be, the lesson on economic matters is simple. Economic growth is encouraged by incentive tax cuts, low inflation assured by a sensible monetary policy, and deficits are avoided and debts paid by restraining and cutting federal spending. If Reagan had had the votes for all three, instead of only two of three, we would not be talking about deficits and debt today.
SOCIAL ISSUES
Turning to so-called social issues, we confront what appear to be the most puzzling political problems facing the Republican Party today. The issues of abortion, prayer in public schools, school choice, gay rights, AIDS, quotas, etc., are taking on a predominance in the Republican Party which many find unsettling. The dominant media elite and Hollywood's celebrity pundits portray Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Pat Buchanan, and Rush Limbaugh as neanderthals pulling the nation back to the Dark Ages and as the dominant force in the GOP. How the party reacts to these issues will probably determine its success in the future.
Ronald Reagan is often portrayed as a cynical politician who talked a good game for conservative social issues but never really forced the issue by pushing hard for legislation on these social questions.This criticism misunderstands the genesis of how social issues came to occupy such a prominent place in our national politics since the 1970s. When Reagan took office in 1981, the public's anger and anxiety were running high regarding busing, abortion, school prayer, criminals (especially drug dealers, walking the streets due to procedural errors and technical oversight13), quotas14, and pornography. All of these concerns had infected the body politic not because representative bodies, such as city councils, school boards, state legislatures, or the federal Congress had passed controversial legislation but because activist left-wing judges had imposed an unpopular, unrepresentative and tortured left-wing interpretation of the law on the society at large. These judges had no respect for judicial restraint and the traditional role of a judge within the Constitutional framework of the separation of powers. These activist judges looked to make policy and not simply to interpret the law. They sought to impose a radical left-wing policy regardless of community standards and majority sentiment. This judicial activism excited all the opposition and almost literally gave birth to the Moral Majority and the Religious Right.15 The activities of these activist judges gave birth to the groups which were a major part of Reagan's coalition and one of the primary reasons for Ronald Reagan's election in 1980.
Thus regarding social issues, Reagan saw his first task, not as pushing actual legislation through Congress, but rather as reining in renegade judges through the appointment of judges who believed in original intent and judicial restraint. Reagan had campaigned promising to appoint judges who exercised judicial restraint by limiting themselves to interpreting the law and respecting the original intent of the Founders of the U.S. Constitution. Reagan understood that the solution to the problem was restoring the constitutional rule of law, with the proper roles assigned to the respective branches of the Federal Government and with the system of checks and balances functioning in proper fashion.16 His success in this led to the charge, in the mainstream media, that he was trying to roll back civil rights gains. Over twelve years, the Reagan/Bush nominees were repeatedly portrayed as racist, divisive and even insensitive.
Next to the defeat of the Soviet Union, Reagan's success with his judicial appointments has changed the dynamics of American politics more than anything else he did.Over the course of his two administrations, Reagan appointed almost half of the federal judiciary, 371 judges out of a total of 761, including three Supreme Court judges. By appointing judges who exercise judicial restraint, Reagan has forced social issues out of the courts and onto the forefront of legislative agendas. A liberal Congress can no longer find cover in a judiciary--isolated from the wrath of the voter"willing to implement a radical left-wing social agenda. At the same time, Reagan's appointees are unwilling to impose a conservative social agenda. They are only willing to interpret law as made by legitimate representatives elected by the people. This trend is clearly illustrated in cases regarding abortion. In 1988, in the Webster Case, the Supreme Court, while unwilling to overturn Roe v. Wade, permitted the state legislature of Missouri to place restrictions on abortions without itself detailing what those restrictions can or can't be.The Court seemed to continue this in Casey v. Planned Parenthood in 1991. Other cases in recent years have shown this determination on the part of the Court to exercise judicial restraint and to defer to representative bodies. Reagan's judiciary then has, to an important degree, restored a crucial part of the separation of powers by restraining itself and thus forcing the legislatures around the country to deliberate on all important issues. Reagan's and Bush's success in remaking the judiciary has thus thrust social issues onto the forefront of legislative politics not only in the Federal Congress but also in State legislatures across the country. Since those running for elective office must now face those issues directly, the social issues facing the country take on a prominence which they did not have in legislative races in the 1980s.
It must be noted that in opposition to these efforts of the Reagan and Bush administrations, a group of special interests including abortion rights lobbyists, the ACLU, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Women's Legal Defense Fund, Ralph Nader "public interest" groups, People for the American Way, etc., devoted almost all of their energy and efforts to plotting strategy against Reagan/Bush nominees.17 In the course of the twelve years of the Reagan and Bush Administrations, these groups raised character assassination to an art form. These groups' intolerance, lack of civility and complete contempt for the forms of the Constitution were demonstrated most clearly in their attacks on Robert Bork in 1987 and Clarence Thomas in 1991. Robert Bork's judicial philosophy, opinions and academic writings were distorted beyond recognition. Clarence Thomas was vilified because he was a black conservative. Due process was denied to him in a way that it wasn't denied even to the Tailhook perpetrators, Bob Packwood, Brock Adams, & Daniel Inouye. Some blacks who opposed Clarence Thomas argued that he should be defeated because "he doesn't think black." The political correctness which infects higher education in America today, increasingly characterizes the manner in which important public policy decisions and appointments are carried on. This unwillingness to engage in debate and deliberation and willingness to engage in character assassination no matter the cost to the individual or to the truth, is the clearest example of how far an egalitarian nihilism has infected public policy decisions inside the Beltway. A more recent example of this dogmatic nihilism was in the special Senate race in Texas. Because she did not adopt the radical feminist agenda, Kay Bailey Hutchinson was described as a female impersonator by Gloria Steinem.18
Today an iron triangle exists even in the appointment process. This iron triangle consists of the staffers on various committees, special interest groups, and finally the media who flock like idiotic sheep to the special interests for sound bites. While the activity of this insidious iron triangle will die down now that the Democrats have captured the White House, one can rest assured that the knives will remained sharpened if the Republicans recapture the White House and fail to capture the U.S. Congress.
CONCLUSION
The coalition through which Ronald Reagan won elections and with which Ronald Reagan governed consisted of three parts: anti-communist Cold Warriors, Social Conservatives, and Economic Conservatives. The dynamics of the late '70s and early 1980s permitted an alliance between factions which were in many respects uneasy with, if not downright hostile toward, each other. The threat of an external enemy, the Soviet Union, the dire need to focus on the economy due to inflation and low growth, and the necessity of addressing social issues first through the appointment of conservative judges, allowed Reagan and the GOP to emphasize those issues on which the party could easily unite. The dynamics of the '90s are very different. With the defeat of the Soviet Union, there is no great immediate external threat, with the strangling of inflation there is no economic emergency, and with judges, especially the Supreme Court, increasingly exercising restraint and thus forcing the Congress and state legislatures to face those issues which the Left preferred to have decided in the courts, the political dynamics of coalition building have fundamentally changed.
Perhaps the real legacy of Ronald Reagan and the greatest challenge in preserving that legacy is whether the Republican Party and its leaders has sufficient intelligence and sufficient strength to articulate a common cause which can put the pieces of that coalition back together again. For now, America is the only superpower in the world. We should remain so and not permit the Democratic Party to destroy our military effectiveness and prowess. The Republican Party must articulate the role America should play in the world by keeping in mind Ronald Reagan's hardheaded moralism and practical judgments regarding national interest.
The strongest issue which Republicans now have, thanks to Clinton's abandonment of his campaign pledge, is taxes. There is almost universal opposition to more taxes. Many Americans of middle-range income, now pay as much as 40-45% of their income in taxes. Local, State, and Federal taxes combined are extraordinarily high. A reduction in taxes and in the size and regulatory reach of the Federal Government is the strongest issue the Republican Party has.19
Perhaps the best way to deal with the divisive social issues is to rely on the genius of the American political system, i.e., federalism.The genius of federalism is not only that it recognizes local control as the greatest safeguard of liberty and the surest way to limit the scope of the Federal Government but also that it recognizes the importance of diversity and toleration in a large extended republic. This might mean fighting out the social issues at the state and local level and keeping the Federal Government out of the questions. If the people of San Francisco want to permit bathhouses perhaps that is a decision for the local majority. If a local school board wants to require Bible reading in the public school perhaps that is a decision for the local majority. In either case it is not a decision for the Federal Government, or for either Pat Robertson or the left wing People for the American Way. Their role, just as the role of every citizen, in each case should be limited to persuading the majority of local voters to change its opinion.
The strongest social issue for the conservatives is opposition to quotas. Almost all Americans believe in equal opportunity and resent preferential treatment for any person or group. Abortion is obviously the most volatile issue. Yet even here gentle persuasion seems to be effecting a consensus in the country which is eliminating abortion on demand if not establishing an outright prohibition on all abortions. The most dangerous social issue is the question of immigration.
In any event, the opportunities for a fundamental realignment of the American political system seem to be present, one need only notice the Republican victories in the special Senate elections in Texas and Georgia, the lieutenant governor's race in Arkansas, and also the election of Republicans as mayors of Los Angeles and Jersey City, New Jersey. The Democratic Party and the Clinton Administration seem to be handing the GOP a golden opportunity for the 1994 and 1996 elections.
Whether the Republican Party will take advantage of this opportunity remains an open question.The key to future Republican success depends upon the ability of its leaders to persuade a majority of Americans that they deserve to rule. In order to succeed where Reagan failed, they need to persuade a majority of Americans that the GOP deserves an opportunity to govern not only from the White House but also from both houses of the U.S. Congress. The fortunate thing for the Republican Party is that in order to salvage their future they need only look around and see where and why they have been successful and where and why they have been unsuccessful. The parts of the old coalition are not incompatible. They are only incompatible if the GOP permits the media elite to define the different parts to each other. Success will come if the GOP makes a clear statement of principles, has the courage to stand by those principles, and the foresight to exploit the enemy's weaknesses. The American people want lower taxes, they want less government (including middle class entitlement cuts and local majority rule), and they want more ordered freedom.
Ronald Reagan gave us hope. He reinvigorated the American spirit. He reminded America of what it is at its best. He, simply with his smile and with his wit, relegated to the academy the "Vietnam syndrome," the "blame America first" crowd, and the "malaise" of spirit. With his policies, we prospered, became more secure, and began to regain an understanding of our constitutional duties. Ronald Reagan lived the American Dream. His eight years as President made it more likely that another generation would be afforded the opportunity to do so as well. In remembering him, as he deserves to be remembered, we remind ourselves of what we can be and how to be that.
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