Ronald Reagan hurt America, more than he helped it.

Sorry for the late response, due to school I don't have the free time to post during the days on week days. As a side note, I'd love to defend my socialist views comrade. Feel free to create a topic and invite me, and I'll be more than happy to debate. Now onto Reagan. "Let me start by addressing your claim that Reagan's many foreign policy blunders impacts Americans to this day with one word: whose fault is that? The United States did not have to send troops against Saddam in 1991. The United States did not have to station troops in Saudi Arabia following the war, nor did the the US have to prop up the brutal Kuwaiti regime. The United States did not have to send troops into Somalia. The United States did not have to invade Afghanistan or Iraq following 9/11. My point is that these actions, which I would argue have contributed far more to the impacts of Middle Eastern problems felt by average Americans today, were not the inevitable result because of Ronald Reagan's policies." All of this is partially true, but what I'll simply say in response is taht Reagan's policies really got the US into an intervetionist mode. We began to interfere more and more, and this precedence got us where we are today. Also, Reagan practically created the instabilities we have today with Iran and Iraq since we funded both sides, and both sides gained our technology and got our money, whereas we got nothing. So we angered them, but also helped them, and lost in both instances. Also, we don't have to have troops in Saudi Arabia etc, however the precedence of having troops in the Middle East "just in case" was actually started under Reagan when he put in CIA and small military presence in Afghanistan. (I simply know this because a good friend of mine. His father was an MP in Afghanistan protecting the CIA and troops during the 80's) Your Asian comparison is partially true, and ignoring the fact that these countries are still in shambles and the US is simply exploiting their labor, this won't happen in the Middle East. The Middle East only provides the US oil supplies, however with the instability and insurrection that is guaranteed to last indefinitely, the US will reap no benefits. "I challenge your claim that the positive impacts Reagan had on the economy were felt for only a short period of time. Remember what the economy was like before Reagan's term in office; a decade of non-stop inflation and unemployment. We're talking double digit inflation and double-digit unemployment for multiple years. Today a "recession" is 6% unemployment and a 3% inflation rate. That's peanuts compared to the 70's. Because of Reagan's actions, the American economy has regained the flexibility it lost during the massive expansion of government that picked up in the 60's and crashed in the 70's." I did not live in the Reagan era, however I have read much about the economy under Reagan. My definition of "recession" today deals nothing with fiscal or monetary policies in general, it's more specific that wages aren't rising, and we have an impending housing crisis. (Even though inflation rose 1% in the last month as reported by the Center for Economic Policy Research) Furthermore, the economy under Reagan was strong, but I don't value these few years of economic growth and change as outweighing the deaths of all those in our interventionist policies, and the results of these policies we feel today. I'll stipulate that until Clinton, the US has a fairly strong and stable economy which I'll attribute to Reagan, however these 8 years of growth or so aren't that pivotal in the context of the prior impacts. "Reagan certainly did use his veto pen to counter congressional domestic spending, 78 times. 9 of those vetoes were overridden. Moreover, your point about tax cuts decreasing revenue is demonstrably false. After lowering top bracket rates, overall tax revenues from the top bracket increased as did their overall burden. An illustrative graph can be found here: http://www.house.gov....... The tax cuts, rather than raising the deficit, should have lowered the deficit." I'm not going to contest that Reagan didn't veto anything, but he sure could have used other policies to compromise and get in his policies. Tax cuts generally lower the deficit, and I'll stipulate that in theory it works, but in practicality it's not exactly true. Alan Greenspan in his book actually has a pretty in depth analysis of how tax cuts have to work. If you don't cut spending along with taxes, the aggregate demand can be unnaturally shifted to cause an unhealthy change in the supply curve. Also, the problem is that in general Reagan did not cut spending, and that simply is a problem we are still feeling. Your Treasury Bond analysis is perfectly true, but you're not accounting for the thousands of bids placed on the bonds by foreign investors. Ever 3 months when the Treasury releases its statements on issuing bonds, some of the best bidders on the bonds are actually foreign investors, thus the deficit being paid off in foreign currency is weakening the dollar, and I believe I explained the rest earlier. Also, Treasury bonds and their relation to liquidated currency is a very tricky area, one in which I admittedly cannot predict the immediate results. It creates healthy spending, but also rises prices drastically. (See the housing market) I think we can really argue their impact, but I don't see it as essential to this round. Finally on globalization, no country that opened up its' markets that hadn't already has gained from globalization. They simply allowed their people to be exploited. Also, these open markets are part of the problem that we have lower wages in factory jobs, we're shipping jobs overseas, we're importing immigrants, (which Reagan approved and has yet to have been refuted) and we have things like lead toys. What this really comes down to is valuing the 7-10 years of economic change and success, or valuing the innocent death of hundreds of thousands, a foreign policy crisis, a looming weak dollar, and a global image of hatred.