Ronald Reagan Was A Tax-And-Spend Liberal
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Few figures in living memory have left an impression on American politics quite like Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Over the last seven presidential election cycles, nearly every Republican primary has resolved into a Ronald Reagan-lookalike contest, with virtually every candidate name-dropping the great man as naturally as the rest of us say “hello.”
During just one debate in 2015, the Republican nominees brought up Reagan 23 times, not counting references to his library (where the debate was held) or to his plane, which was parked immediately behind the stage.
For 25 years, Republicans have painted a rhetorical picture of the Reagan years as a golden age of low taxes and regulations, high economic growth, and boundless patriotism that flowed like a mighty river out of the Gipper’s Oval Office and into the hearts of his countrymen.
The real Ronald Reagan hardly resembles this cartoonish caricature. Taxes under Reagan, for example, did drop from the effective 70-percent rate of 1981 to only 28 percent by 1986. What goes unmentioned in the GOP hagiography, however, is that the president doesn’t set the tax rates – Congress does, and during the ’80s, Congress was solidly Democratic.
Reagan did have some influence over the budget process, which he used to advocate tax increases, in 1982, 1984, 1985, 1986 and 1987.
Throughout his presidency, he continued to support positions that many of today’s Republicans would find surprising. For one, Reagan took executive action to grant amnesty to more than 3 million undocumented immigrants. And after his term ended, he even wrote a New York Times editorial in support of the Brady Bill, which imposed waiting periods and background checks for gun purchases.
As has been said many times, it’s doubtful that the modern GOP would allow Ronald Reagan to win the nomination, let alone the presidency.
