Ronald Reagan was the best president in the 20th Century.

1. Two bills passed in 1982 and 1984 together "constituted the biggest tax increase ever enacted during peacetime," Thorndike said. Annual federal tax receipts during his presidency averaged 18.2% of GDP, a smidge below the average under President Carter -- and a smidge above the 40-year average today. Taxes under President Reagan were around normal. There were no huge "tax cuts" when considered to the national average.1 2. Actually, this is not true. As Alexander George explains, "The increase in the relative power advantage enjoyed by the United States... was of quite limited and indirect value in explaining the transition in US-Soviet relations." The primary driver was the "Abysmal deterioration in the performance of the Soviet economy." Christopher Xenakis says that "Most American Sovietologists missed the sure signs of Soviet change that were evident during the 1970s and 1980s." In other words, the inefficiencies and internal contradictions of the communist system were there all along and doomed the Soviet project to failure. Wolf noted that in 1980, the costs of the 'Soviet Empire' i.e. the nonmilitary cost of maintaining control over its outer republics and satellites came to over 38 billion rubles (up to $35bn in 1985 dollars) and had grown at a rate of 12% over the course of the 1970s, massively outstripping Soviet GDP growth. This was clearly not sustainable, whoever was in the White House.2, 3, 4 3. Lafraie"s statement indicates the complete apathy of the U.S. towards countries it used to win wars against the Soviet Union. The U.S. is therefore itself to blame for the rise of Islamic militancy and terrorism based on how it used Afghans to fight the Soviets. Region bordering Pakistan-Afghanistan, which is now the epicenter of Islamic terrorism, is a direct result of Reagan Doctrine. The Reagan Doctrine had a narrow vision of defeating Soviets by providing overt and covert aids, and it did not care for the long lasting effects. It did not hesitate to term the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan as a religious war, but they did not realize its long term effects in the Middle East or in other Islamic countries. For this very reason based on the analysis of the social, political and religion environments in the Middle East, Susmit Kumar wrote in his 1995 article: "The U.S. has sowed the seeds of the next Cold War by employing the low-cost war strategy in Afghanistan. Although a rise in Islamic fundamentalist movements world-wide was inevitable, U.S. involvement in Afghanistan only hastened the process..."5, 6, 7 4. You realize that every president in the 20th century has had rich backers that funded his campaign? They fund his campaign, he lowers their taxes. Reagan did it too. 5. Still, Iran-Contra was bad. My opponent even admits this. Even if it originally had good intentions, in the end, it was bad. The plan funded terrorists. There"s no getting around this. My opponent has conceded this point. 6. Now contrast this with Reagan's record on AIDS, one of the most important issues of the 80s. AIDS first came to national attention in 1981. Reagan did not even utter the word 'AIDS' until 1987, eighteen months after even his ideological running-mates, the Thatcher government in the UK, had authorized a national TV ad campaign to raise awareness. By this time, 27,909 Americans had died from the disease. His administration denied requests from the Center for Disease Control and National Institutes of Health for more funding into the disease. "Between June 1981 and May 1982 the CDC spent less than $1 million on AIDS and $9 million on Legionnaire's Disease. At that point more than 1,000 of the 2,000 reported AIDS cases resulted in death; there were fewer than 50 deaths from Legionnaire's Disease." Reagan ignored all the warnings, even when he could have done something about it. Other Conservatives were. He simply failed to act.8 7. So just because a source disagrees with you, you call it a left-wing piece of junk? That"s a great argument. Do continue with your unsourced, unevidenced claims while my sourced claim still stands. 8. It is because of Reagan"s actions that air traffic controllers face labor crises every now and then. The "cycle" " a direct result stemming from Reagan"s dismissal decision " will occur every 25 years when the majority of air traffic controllers reach the mandatory retirement age of 56. The cycle will continue happening because two current FAA hiring requirements are that controllers have to "be no older than age 30" and retire by the age of 56.9 9. My opponent drops my unemployment argument. Works Cited: 1 http://money.cnn.com... 2 George, A. The Transition in U.S.-Soviet Relations, 1985-1990: An Interpretation from the Perspective of International Relations Theory and Political Psychology. Political Psychology 12 (3): pp. 469-486. 3 Xenakis, C (2002): What Happened to the Soviet Union? How and Why American Sovietologists Were Caught by Surprise. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. 4 Wolf, C. The Costs of the Soviet Empire. Science (New Series) 230 (4729): pp. 997-1002. 5 Burns, John, "Kabul"s misery wears a single face" The Guardian, UK, February 6, 1996, Originally published in The New York Times. 6 Kumar, Susmit, "Christian vs. Islamic Civilization"Another Cold War?" Global Times, Copenhagen, Denmark, December 15, 1995. 7 http://www.susmitkumar.net... 8 http://www.actupny.org... 9 http://www.businessinsider.com...