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Was Reagan a good president?

Was Reagan a good president?

  • Total voters
    78
He projected strenght, started the debt we now have.

Overall, average.
 
People who get upset about the initiatives of the first lady are pathetic. They reinforce common sense. Saying no to drugs, learning to read, and eating right and getting exercise are all good things. The radical left and right are so silly.
 
In a 62 year time span he's probably the best Republican since Eisenhower, but over all he was just a so so moderate Republican who ultimately led us down the path of de-regulation and widened the gap between rich and poor. I voted he was so so.
 
kenvin said:
People who get upset about the initiatives of the first lady are pathetic. They reinforce common sense. Saying no to drugs, learning to read, and eating right and getting exercise are all good things. The radical left and right are so silly.
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Yeah, no need to bring First Ladies into this.
 
Ronald Reagan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

probably would be beneficial for people to fully read the wikipedia page on reagan and read a whole overview of his presidency,rather than picking one thing from his presidency and labeling him good or bad without seeing the whole picture.
 
Good
Cut taxes
Good foreign policy
Oversaw the continuation of the wave of deregulation of many industries that started under Carter

Bad
Increased defense to an absurd degree as the Soviets were collapsing mostly under their own weight
Massively ramped up the War on Drugs
Didn't really deregulate the financial industry as much as allow for the creation of a poorly laid out safety net that encouraged risky investment.

He was neither Jesus nor the Anti-Christ.
 
He was a nice smile with hair that just would not gray.

He granted amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.

His voodoo economics was the start of a great downfall.

He bailed out the bankrupt savings and loan banks.

He was a better actor.
 
His acting was on a par with his political skills.
 
Mickey Shane said:
He was a nice smile with hair that just would not gray.

He granted amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.

His voodoo economics was the start of a great downfall.

He bailed out the bankrupt savings and loan banks.

He was a better actor.
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i fail to see the voodoo economics.he gave america one of the most prosperous economic periods growth that lasted nearly 2 decades.yet i guess the voodoo of i is that it failed at some point so instead of fixing what worked great for many years people want to revert back to prior economic policies that failed.economics fail but there was prosperity through the 80's and 90's demonize it for failing.
 
The republicans like to revise history. Or better yet, deny humongous shortcomings like these... As someone whose sister was afflicted by severe bipolar disorder (and required 24/7 mental assistance) as a symptom on Huntington's Chorea...I promise you his legacy isn't all rainbows and lollipops...


Ronald Reagan may have been a good and decent man.As president, though, Reagan pursued policies that were short-sighted, reckless and, for many, hurtful. His economic legacy is one of deplorable disregard for the consequences of his actions, and the ramifications of Reagan's decisions remain with us to this day.I'll focus here on just three issues: soaring budget deficits, homelessness and AIDS.​
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It is interesting to note that the conclusions in this thread fall pretty much along ideological lines, and thus are hardly objective by any stretch of the imagination. But, I'll give mine, too. Why not?

Overall, he was better than average. The good things he accomplished were significant, albeit at a cost. However, there are some warts, as well.

Now for some responses...
mike2810 said:
Didn't Clinton have a balanced budget? Spending = income.
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No, not really. There were a lot of smoke-and-mirrors involved. Borrowing from questionable sources that gave the illusion of balancing "the budget", yet... if you/we were actually intellectually honest, and counted total dollars-in vs total dollars-out... we didn't actually balance anything. We still ran a deficit.


DrunkenAsparagus said:
Good
Cut taxes
Good foreign policy
Oversaw the continuation of the wave of deregulation of many industries that started under Carter

Bad
Increased defense to an absurd degree as the Soviets were collapsing mostly under their own weight
Massively ramped up the War on Drugs
Didn't really deregulate the financial industry as much as allow for the creation of a poorly laid out safety net that encouraged risky investment.

He was neither Jesus nor the Anti-Christ.
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The one thing I can never forgive him for. That, in combination with the massive expansion of civil asset forfeiture, is the most anti-American thing ever done. IMO, of course.
 
I voted No simply because of his fiscal record, ironically most of his successors who praise him as a deity would label him a socialist and un-american if his policies were employed in today's society.
 
Justice For All said:
In a 62 year time span he's probably the best Republican since Eisenhower, but over all he was just a so so moderate Republican who ultimately led us down the path of de-regulation and widened the gap between rich and poor. I voted he was so so.
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Eisenhower got us started with Viet Nam when the French pulled out, as "advisors" and see what advising finally got us; 60,000 plus Americans killed for false ideology. Eisenhower sucked as bad as Reagan, IMO.
 
Uzidoesit said:
Eisenhower got us started with Viet Nam when the French pulled out, as "advisors" and see what advising finally got us; 60,000 plus Americans killed for false ideology. Eisenhower sucked as bad as Reagan, IMO.
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Lay the blame for the vast majority of those deaths where it honestly lies... Johnson. Involvement in Vietnam under Eisenhower was pretty small. It expanded under Kennedy, but was still relatively small. It was expanded massively under Johnson, and became an all-out fully-committed war for us under Johnson.
 
Uzidoesit said:
Eisenhower got us started with Viet Nam when the French pulled out, as "advisors" and see what advising finally got us; 60,000 plus Americans killed for false ideology. Eisenhower sucked as bad as Reagan, IMO.
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I'm not a Republican but Eisenhower cannot be blamed for Vietnam plain and simple just as JFK can't be blamed for it. The only man that escalated that war was LBJ. Eisenhower and the 50's were some of America's best years, since him there's been nothing but mediocre to straight up terrible republican presidents.
 
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Justice For All said:
I'm not a Republican but Eisenhower cannot be blamed for Vietnam plain and simple just as JFK can't be blamed for it. The only man that escalated that war was LBJ. Eisenhower and the 50's were some of America's best years, since him there's been nothing but mediocre to straight up terrible republican presidents.
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I beg to disagree. If Eistenhower had kept his nose out of VietNam, that conflagration might never have happened. Generals make terrible presidents.
 
Harshaw said:
How did Clinton "stop the spending"?
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Clinton raised taxes on the rich and cut spending to balance the budget. He left office with the government taking in more than it was spending. If GWB had not reversed that plan, the US economy would be in much, much better shape today.
 
Reagan-October Surprise-Treason
Iran Contra-illegality bordering treason
Trickle down economics-ignorance bordering on lunacy
McD jogs as manufacturing-fraud
Began the export of US factories with tax breaks
Strikebreaking with the Air Controllers-undemocratic
Unquestionably a genuine Republican with great one liners (thanks to speechwriters), good at remembering his lines.
 
Justice For All said:
I'm not a Republican but Eisenhower cannot be blamed for Vietnam plain and simple just as JFK can't be blamed for it. The only man that escalated that war was LBJ. Eisenhower and the 50's were some of America's best years, since him there's been nothing but mediocre to straight up terrible republican presidents.
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I'm not sure what you're talking about, but JFK can certainly be blamed for it. As if escalation is the only reason that war went to ****.
 
Uzidoesit said:
Eisenhower got us started with Viet Nam when the French pulled out, as "advisors" and see what advising finally got us; 60,000 plus Americans killed for false ideology. Eisenhower sucked as bad as Reagan, IMO.
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In reality Truman decided to support the French when HCM was a big fan of the USA and pissed HCM off driving him to the Communists. Truman freaked out over Mainland China following to Mao and he couldn't figure out that HCM was a nationalist first and only adopted communism as a means to throw out the decadent French
 
Frolicking Dinosaurs said:
Clinton raised taxes on the rich and cut spending to balance the budget. He left office with the government taking in more than it was spending. If GWB had not reversed that plan, the US economy would be in much, much better shape today.
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Clinton got lucky with the dot com bubble. without that the tax hikes would have caused lots of problems
 
StillBallin75 said:
I'm not sure what you're talking about, but JFK can certainly be blamed for it. As if escalation is the only reason that war went to ****.
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Eisenhower and JFK basically stayed out of the war without a full military presence and did special forces missions and aided the south Vietnamese much like we did with Libya, Paskistan, and other countries to fight enemies. There's no evidence Kennedy wanted a full blown war he just wanted to help these people where he could but he did not want all out war. LBJ is the only one who declared all out war on the Vietnamese and made it a true war.
 
The nice thing about Reagan is that he made Americans feel good about being Americans, in the wake of Carter.
 
I voted for Reagan twice. I thought he did a good job. He wasn't great, made his share of mistakes. I think his second term he was already being impacted by the Alzheimer's that eventually killed him. Nancy was prompting him with answers in his second term. That's a scary thought.
Schenectady Gazette - Google News Archive Search

Reagan's tax cuts and deregulation helped, and as stated, Americans felt better about themselves. Smokestack america died, look up an article on the death of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. PA RUST BELT

I don't think all the economic progress of the 80's was magically caused by him, he got lucky. Energy prices fell dramatically in the 80's, due to energy efficient cars that came from govt. mandated fleet fuel standards in the 70's plus the increased exploration spurred by the higher prices in the late 70's (that crashed in the 80's, from $35 a barrel down to $10 a barrel).

He benefited from a boom of productivity spurred by the widespread use of PC's in business, Visicalc, Lotus 123, Word Perfect, Dbase IV, AutoCad, email, etc. Later Microsoft killed many PC applications with their "suite" of Excel, Word, and Access. This was a revolution of business productivity in one decade, and Reagan had nothing to do with it!
 
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