Savor the irony of the second Republican 2012 presidential debate, not only because it takes place in the Ronald Reagan Library, but because Reagan’s economic policies are the best argument against the Republican Party platform today.
What, for the past few decades, has been loosely lumped under the heading “Reaganomics,” “supply side economics,” or “trickle down,” actually manifested in ways strikingly familiar to what has been happening to public workers today in Wisconsin, and other states.
It was 30 years ago almost to the day, back on August 3, 1981, that a first term president, Ronald Reagan, ended the air traffic controller strike by firing striking air traffic controllers. As ABC reported that day, Mr. Reagan seemed convinced that “being tough is what the public wants.” Oddly enough, it seems to be what the public wants today, too, only from a Democratic president, Barack Obama.
A closer look at what it means to be tough also comes through, as Jonathan Kozol reported in Illiterate America, when at a time 60 percent of America’s population, roughly one-third, were functionally illiterate President Reagan requested that federal funding for literacy programs be cut by 50 percent. Nor did it escape Kozol’s notice that the intent for doing so was to create a permanent welfare class consisting mostly of people of color.
So, while conservatives are so fond of blaming Democrats for what they call a “welfare state, don’t forget that Reagan’s agenda of cutting funding for literacy programs in half is largely responsible for creating what can only be called a welfare class.
Mr. Reagan departed drastically from the policies of his predecessor, Jimmy Carter, who not only identified the problem of illiteracy in this country but, as Kozol said, “defined it as an obligation he would not shirk.”
Funding for literacy programs in the U.S., in the mid-1980s, was $100 million, and the president wanted to reduce its size to $50 million. What did he want to do with the rest? In 1983, he proposed the establishment of strategic defense missiles, “Star Wars,” as a way to shield against nuclear ballistics attacks, and in 1984, the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization was launched.
Arguably, government, or the public sector, thanks to Star Wars, quickly became the biggest growth industry under Ronald Reagan. Any attempt to make Reagan the guru of “smaller government” by any of the Republican candidates this Wednesday is simply laughable. Any arguments to the contrary by Eric Cantor, Rand Paul, or Paul Ryan merely show the extent of their disconnect with history.
Remember, during Wednesday’s Republican debate, when any of the aspiring Republican presidents are asked about how they feel about cutting the defense budget, the failure to drastically cut defense can only be offset by reductions in so-called “entitlements” like literacy and support for public education. In his 1984 federal budget, Reagan authorized nearly 10 times more for defense than education, $269 billion for defense, $29 billion for education.
Oh, when you hear Romney, Perry, Paul, Bachmann et. al talk about the need to reduce the federal deficit, and cut spending, don’t forget that the total spending for 1984 was more than seven times the federal defict, or $852 billion for spending to $185 billion deficit. It’s fair to say Ronald Reagan spent his way out of recession.
President George W. Bush shouldn’t feel bad. He wasn’t the only one who came into office with a surplus, and left office with a deficit. Reagan did, too.
And, when you hear his Republican progeny like Perry, Romney, and Bachmann extol his virtues, and call him a job creator, keep in mind that it was a rise in unemployment in his first term that nearly kept Mr. Reagan from a second term, and yes, it was only by increasing the federal deficit that Mr. Reagan was able to not only stabilize employment, but grow it.
The fluctuations in the stock market pale by comparison to the ups and downs of unemployment under Reagan. At the start of 1981, and at the beginning of his first term, the unemployment rate in the U.S. was 7.5 percent and it grew to nearly 8.6 percent by January 1982. By the end of 1982 and during his first term, official unemployment stood at nearly 11 percent, an increase of nearly 3 percent.
As the unemployment began to decrease, arguably as a result of federal spending, Mr. Reagan’s chances for a second term grew proportionately. His popularity began to plummet not because he increased federal spending on military programs, and the federal deficit, but because of the Iran-Contra debacle.
So, where were all the deficit hawks when Ronald Reagan was in office? Where were all the obstructionists when Ronald Reagan raised the debt ceiling some 18 times?
And, where were the folks who want to privatize everything from Social Security to Medicaid to public education, folks like Scott Walker, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, the folks who call for “smaller government” and, who like Sarah Palin, speak worshipfully of Reagan when, back in August, 1981, Ronald Reagan said, “Government has to provide, without interruption, the protective services that are its reason for being.”
Of course, that statement was made in the context of breaking the backs of air traffic controllers, but a former union organizer himself, Ronald Reagan was alarmingly prescient given the efforts of those like Scott Walker, and, yes, even Arnold Schwarzenegger, who chose to furlough government workers, and not government bureaucrats.
It was under Ronald Reagan that the concepts of deregulation and free markets became inextricably intertwined, setting the stage for the massive mortgage and housing fraud, and failure that resulted in the crash of 1987, and that has brought this country closer to total economic collapse than we have been in more than eighty years.
Maybe, in the end, Republicans running for the White House in 2012 might be wise to avoid skipping in the shadow of Ronald Reagan, as those who walk with ghosts must learn to live with them. And, while some may hunger for another Ronald Reagan, we really can’t afford one.
Jayne Lyn Stahl is a widely published poet, essayist, playwright, and screenwriter, member of PEN American Center, and PEN USA.
