Ronald Reagan hurt America, more than he helped it.

Thank you very much for responding. I'm going to first step by step refute my opponents major claims, then add onto my own and show why mine outwiegh. Essentially my main argument can be summed up into the simply idea that the effects of the economic success were only felt for a brief period of time, whereas the United States is still feeling the problems of his foreign policy ventures. "First off, I would argue that one of his domestic achievements alone counterbalances the negative effects of the above: he gave Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker the green light to fight the 13.5% inflation that the Reagan administration inherited. Just take in that staggering figure for a second. Every year everything would, on average, get 13.5% more expensive. Retirees' savings were wiped out, unemployment was high and the banking system itself was on the verge of collapse." All of these statements are very true, and I do not question their legitimacy, what I question is how important that is today. Now the US has a continually circular economy, one in which we are on the verge of recession yet again. Also, in the 1990's unemployment and inflation began to rise yet again. So the benefits from Reagan in this case were only really felt for about 5 years. "Combating inflation required very drastic, politically unpopular action. Interest rates eventually rose to over 20%, creating short-term unemployment and an even deeper recession. Without this painful crunch, however, the "stagflation" that Reagan inherited would have continued. Because Reagan resisted political action against this shock therapy, the United States economy was literally saved. After his first two years, inflation was tamed with unemployment lowering. Reagan's attitude of "if not now, when?" was a positive departure from the "quick fix" solutions of Nixon, Ford and Carter. Indeed, this departure was literally responsible for the remarkable rebound of the American economy. When Reagan left office, even taking into account the relatively mild recession that followed, the United States was a more stable and prosperous country." The United States at the time was a more stable country, but ironically part of Reagans major tax cuts to fix for the long term, were actually short term policies. The growing accumulated debt and unpaid social security crisis, which fostered under Reagan is continually a problem. Reagans policies did not take into account the large baby boom generation, and dipped into the social security pool. Also, the tax cuts are cost us to borrow foreign currency, which is intern weaking the value of the dollar, and why in 5 years the euro will be the main reserve currency instead of the dollar. "You correctly criticize the deficit spending that occurred under the Reagan administration. However, most of that responsibility lies in the fact that congress was unreceptive to cutting domestic spending. Part of the blame lies in Reagan's inability to convince Congress to do so, but there was only so much he could do with a solidly Democratic Congress. Also, are you seriously going to argue that cutting the top income tax rate from 70% to 50% was a net negative on the American economy? Reagan did underachieve in pushing the free market reforms he advocated so eloquently, but he did change the ideological balance of power in this country. After all, how many politicians today are advocating price controls and nationalizing industries?" My first response is that a President always has a veto pen, no matter what the Congress does, however Reagan had a major control in his budget and economic policies that actually passed. I am seriously going to argue that cutting the top income tax rate from 70% to 50% was a net negative on the american economy, OVERTIME. Cutting taxes is perfectly fine, however it also has to be cut from the budget, but this did not happen. Under Reagan, the Congress cut taxes, but rose spending. Reagan could have stopped this, but found it more of a priority to cut taxes, instead of controlling spending, so we get where we are now. Tax cuts aren't bad, but when you don't cut spending they are. Your point of free market reforms basically holds, but it's not really that important since it's a minor issue. No one really disagrees that a free market is bad, and other presidents continued that policy, however it is a small point. "Finally, Reagan did have a positive impact on opening up the era of globalization that has positively impacted the living standards not just of Americans but foreigners. Reagan and his ideological ally Margaret Thatcher represented a sea change away from the interventionism of Keynesian economic doctrine to more free market approaches. The impact of this ideological shift could be seen at the time in the rejection of socialism by Eastern Europeans and afterwards by their remarkable growth under free market policies advocated by Reagan. Estonia, the "Baltic Tiger," is the best example of this." Globalization has occurred, but I don't believe it's at the cause of Reagan. I personally believe that there were two causes of this, as Thomas L. Friedman, the father of globalization asserts in his book The Lexus and the Olive Tree. 1. Technology 2. 1990's Free trade agreements. Reagan had nothing to do with either. Next, Reagan's ideological shift in Eastern Europe was good, and for the record, as a socialist, none of the Eastern European countries were socialist whatsoever. They were an altered form of authoritarian communism, which had no workers rights driven behind their revolutions. I don't agree that Eastern Europeans grew because of markets, and I don't believe they grew that soundly. Their economies are volatile, and the US gave them a lot of money, along with other global organizations. These loans enabled them more than generally free markets, moreso, these markets really fostered in the 1990's and not generally under Reagan. So from all of this, we see that Reagan had some economic positives, but they were short lived. The impacts of his negatives are a continued anti-American sentiment, and hatred of America, felt almost 30 years later. We also see a growing social security crisis, and a weakened dollar. Finally we see that the US has counter productive efforts in the Middle East, which could have been prevented with better policies in the 1980's. The fact is, if Reagan did things right, we would be much more better off now. We wouldn't have a war (in probable terms) and we could fix more important problems.