Ronald Reagan was a bad president.

Thanks for the acceptance, and I'm looking forward to a good debate! :DThose who assess the quality of presidents are often impressed by communication skills and charisma. Both of those characteristics account for President Ronald Reagan’s standing in several lists of good presidents. However, Reagan, like other presidents should be judged not on charisma, but on how his policies affected the nation and the world during his presidency and over the course of history. The policies were poor.The “ruler” with which I will categorically evaluate Reagan’s presidency is the criteria of peace, prosperity, and freedom. Peace allows human beings to be free from unnecessary suffering at the hands of other men and lays the foundation for sound economics and the protection of civil liberties. Prosperity increases the standard of living of humans within its scope and of trading nations. Freedom allows a human to exercise his protected rights in any manner he chooses (so long as it does not interfere with the exercise of the rights of others) and is a fundamental aspect of human nature’s desires. Reagan is scored negatively on all of these criteria; thus, making him a bad president.Peace 1: Increased tensions with Soviet UnionRonald Reagan increased tensions between the USA and USSR from 1981 to 1985, when Mikhail Gorbachev assumed power in the Soviet Union and dramatically sought to open the Soviet system and to better relations with the U.S., Reagan increased the existential nuclear threat to the republic by reversing Richard Nixon’s policy of détente with the USSR and ratcheting up tensions in several other ways. The high-point of Reagan’s callous anti-Soviet rhetoric was his labeling of the USSR as an “evil empire” and declaring that the Communism be left on the “ash heap of history.” But besides the rhetoric and propaganda, Reagan’s nuclear policy was far different than détente’s goal of “stability;” he effectively ended the agreement “Mutually Assured Destruction” with the USSR by greatly increasing the American arms buildup at an unprecedented rate immediately upon taking office in 1981. In 1983, Reagan delivered a speech that described the Strategic Defense Initiative (later disparagingly referred to as ‘Star Wars’), which brought the US to the brink of a catastrophic war. Reagan was playing with fire at the potential cost of millions of American lives. [1, 2, 3]Peace 2: Reagan did not win the Cold WarThe reality was that the Soviet empire collapsed because of its own poor economic performance and consequent overextension. First, the centrally planned economy, which gave no incentives to produce anything of value to benefit society, was nonviable and was eventually bound to fail, regardless of who the U.S. president was when it began to expire. The Soviet empire would have collapsed independently of Reagan’s economically taxing U.S. military buildup. Second, the Soviets were spending huge amounts on their own military and providing arms and assistance to many of the most economically backward or overly regulated economies in the world: something that their dysfunctional and teetering economy could not afford. Third, all U.S. presidents from Truman to George H.W. Bush played a role in perpetuating the forty-plus year Cold War. [1, 2]Prosperity 1: Raised Federal SpendingAs a proportion of the GNP, federal spending increased from 21.6% in 1980 to 24.3% in 1986; federal expenditures as a proportion of net private product (output of the private sector) grew from 31.1% in 1980 to 34.3% in 1986. Furthermore, Reagan did not have the excuse that Congress added on to his funding requests because his proposed budgets and those that Congress eventually passed were fairly close in dollar total. Federal spending was $590 billion at the end of Carter’s term, but increased to $1.14 trillion by Reagan’s last year, 1988. Despite Reagan’s conservative image, he was more fiscally liberal than Clinton, a subsequent democratic President. A true testament to this sad reality is David Stockman, Reagan’s budget director, who lost many fights over spending, later declared that the “Reagan revolution failed.” [2]Freedom 1: Instigated the Iran-Contra Affair (which was worse than Watergate)As bad as provoking blowback terrorism (from Libya), supporting a nation that sponsors terrorism (Iraq), and inadvertently helping spawn terrorists (al Qaeda), the macho Reagan paid ransom, in the form of selling heavy weapons, to a state sponsor of terrorism for the return of U.S. hostages in Lebanon. Iran and the Hezbollah terrorists it sponsored, knowing a good source of revenue when they saw one, just kidnapped addition Americans for more ransom. In his book Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-Up, Judge Lawrence Walsh, the Republican independent prosecutor for the Iran-Contra Affair, noted that Reagan clearly knew he was violating the arms embargo against Iran and the Arms Export Control Act, a statute with criminal penalties, when he authorized weapons sales to Iran in early 1986 without notifying Congress. All in all, a terrible scandal that overrided power, increased the presidency, and decreased freedom. [2]Over to Con! :)[1] Kelly Rogers, Jo Thomas, History: The Cold War, 2009[2] Ivan Eland, Recarving Rushmore, 2009[3] http://www.history.com...