- Character: Reagan's hands-off leadership style manifested into an inability to control his administration from potentially illegal activities, e.g. the "Iran-Contra" scandal. His "troika," the nickname given to Chief of Staff James Baker, Deputy Chief of Staff Michael Deaver, and Counselor Edwin Meese, made many of Reagan's key administrative decisions for him.
- Crime: In a Sep. 28, 1981 speech to the International Chiefs of Police, Reagan claimed that people who commit violent crimes "are not desperate people seeking bread for their families; crime is the way they've chosen to live." This attitude failed to address the stark realities underlying crime, namely the national culture of poverty and discrimination. Violent crime nationwide increased 21% from 1981-1989. The "War on Drugs" wasted billions of dollars and escalated drug-related crime.
- Defense: Reagan increased the defense budget for an unprecedented six consecutive years. This spending produced an unsustainable bubble in the defense industry that led to decades of restructuring. By the early 1990s the defense industry had too many factories and too many workers to support with its smaller budgets. For example, in the early 1980s there were 50 large defense suppliers to the US government. By 2004 there were five.
- Economy: Reagan pledged during his 1980 campaign for president to balance the federal budget, but never submitted a balanced budget in his eight years in office. In 1981, the deficit was $79 billion and, in 1986, at the peak of his deficit spending, it stood at $221 billion. The federal debt was $994 billion when he took office in 1981 and grew to $2.9 trillion when his second term ended in 1989. Reagan also added more trade barriers than any other president since Hoover in 1930. US imports that were subject to some form of trade restraint increased from 12% in 1980 to 23% in 1988.
- Education: In his two terms in office, Reagan slashed federal aid to schools by more than $1 billion, and he cut the Department of Education budget by 19%. One of Reagan's campaign promises was to abolish the Department of Education, which he considered a "bureaucratic boondoggle." After intermittent attempts to fulfill this promise, he gave up in 1983 due to lack of Congressional support.
- Environment: As a president who said "trees cause more pollution than automobiles do," Reagan issued leases for oil, gas, and coal development on tens of millions of acres of national lands. Reagan's appointee to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Anne Gorsuch, tried to gut the 1972 Clean Water Act, cut EPA funding by 25%, and mismanaged a $1.6 billion program to clean up hazardous waste dumps.
- Foreign Policy: Reagan broke his own vows not to make deals with terrorists or states that aided them. In the "Iran-Contra" scandal, Reagan's administration bypassed congressional restrictions on aiding Nicaragua's Contra guerilla fighters, in part by diverting money to them from the sale of missiles to Iran. Reagan also initiated military involvement in Libya, Grenada, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Lebanon.
- Health: Reagan almost completely ignored the growing AIDS epidemic. Although the first case of AIDS was discovered in the early 1980s, Reagan never publicly addressed the epidemic until May 31, 1987 when he spoke at an AIDS conference in Washington, DC. By that time, 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with the disease and 20,849 had died.
- Labor: On Aug. 3, 1981, Reagan ordered 12,176 striking air traffic controllers (PATCO) back to their jobs, disregarding the workers' complaints of stress, staff shortages, and outdated equipment. PATCO was one of the few unions that had endorsed Reagan in the 1980 election. Reagan repaid them by giving them only 48 hours to cancel the strike and banning them from federal service for life. The ban was not lifted until 1993 by President Bill Clinton.
- Science/Technology: Reagan's over-ambitious space-based laser strategic defensive system, the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) or "Star Wars," proved to be too technically complex and expensive to complete. From its inception in 1983 to its demise in 1993, the program cost taxpayers $33 billion dollars.
- Social Policy: Reagan believed that widespread freeloading plagued welfare and social programs. As Reagan slashed spending in his first term on programs such as food stamps and subsidized housing, the poverty rate climbed from 12% to 15% and unemployment rose from 7% to 11%.
- Taxes: Reagan's "voodoo" economic policy, where tax cuts were believed to somehow generate tax revenues, failed to account for his administration's excessive spending which increased from $591 billion in 1980 to $1.2 trillion in 1990. Reagan both increased and cut taxes. In 1980, middle-income families with children paid 8.2% in income taxes and 9.5% in payroll taxes. By 1988 their income tax was down to 6.6%, but payroll tax was up to 11.8%, a combined increase in taxes. Reagan pushed through Social Security tax increases of $165 billion over seven years.
- Other: Reagan opposed many important civil rights measures that further alienated him and the Republican Party from African-Americans. On Mar. 16, 1988, Reagan vetoed the Civil Rights Restoration Act. He was opposed to extending provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. He initially opposed making Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a national holiday. He was also loyal to apartheid South Africa, considering that country a friend and ally.
Side notes.
Ronald Reagan's economic advisor was Milton Friedman, the creator of the economic philosophy that says that there is no such a thing as a free lunch.
Technically that is true, however that doesn't pay the bill, or absolve society of its responsibilities to the country.
And his economics have been responsible for almost every single economic downturn in recent American political history.
Milton Friedman is amongst the worst economists ever, right along side the French economist that created "Laissez Faire".
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