Patriot: Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan is known as one of the most loved Presidents in American history. In a time when politics was bruised and stained by Johnson and Kennedy’s Vietnam War, the Nixon Watergate scandal, Carter’s Iran Hostage crisis and terrible economic growth, Reagan broke away from Progressive big government policies to “the government is the enemy” message. Reagan’s conservative message had finally struck a cord with the American people who had had enough of big government bureaucracy.

One of the most famous speeches in American history is Reagan’s Goldwater Speech . Quite frankly I stumbled upon this speech some years ago and it changed my life. Without teleprompter, Reagan delivered a flawless speech that unveiled the true nature of Progressivism, Communism, Socialism, Marxism, Totalitarianism, Leninism, Stalinism, and Tyranny as a whole. His clear delivery shows that these words are simply an extension of his beliefs not his ego. Never does he claim that these are his beliefs but they are that of the founding fathers’.

Reagan was able to connect with the people because of his candid humor and whit. He also was able to convince the American people to snap out of the blind marching step behind soft tyrannical government and into the light of freedom. This message was pure with a resonating support from the words of truth scribed by our founding fathers. Reagan broke down all of the rhetoric and delivered simple common sense solutions with facts and statistics to back it up. His approach was true Americanism.

Reagan did get extensive criticism due to his ratcheting up of defense spending with his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) which was a ballistic missile defense system relative to Soviet “Cold War” threats. He received so much pressure from the Democratic side of the isle that Clinton felt the need to rename the initiative to Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) in order to deflect any further flack from the public. Reagan did increase the national debt with defense spending but it must be noted that Reagan was key in the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Soviet Union. It must be noted as well that if Reagan hadn’t revived the economy after Carter’s economic failures, the United States would have crumbled like the Soviet Union.

Trickle Down Economics

What must be understood about Reagan’s fiscal policy was the brilliance and simplicity in “Trickle Down Economics”. Some called it Reaganomics. It was pure Adam Smith capitalism with the emphasis cutting government bureaucracy. On the surface of his policy, Reagan stressed that government needed to downsize in order to be able to cut taxes. By cutting taxes, business would have more of their money to spend on advertising, expansion, and eventually more hiring. The increasing profits of employers would eventually trickle down into the pockets of the employed. As the employee’s wealth grew, employees would become consumers, and consumer spending would increase which would inject more money into the pockets of the employer. This symbiotic relationship is sacred to Americanism and to that of Adam Smith’s Capitalism.

So what is even more brilliant is the way that the lowering of taxes actually increases government revenue. Sounds kind of confusing? Well the more income employers make and employees make, an increase in tax revenue is witnessed. When government raises taxes on individuals and businesses, it stifles the incentive to make more income. The “Progressive” income tax created by Woodrow Wilson, is a perfect example. I have personally witnessed construction workers monitoring their hours because they knew when they had to stop working in order to avoid moving into a higher tax bracket. When they were scheduled to work six – ten hour shifts, they would either leave early o call in absent in order to avoid the higher taxable income. How do you think this fairs for business productivity and profitability? Reagan knew this and sought to reform the tax system.

What was fundamental of Reagan’s success was his message and true American ideals. He believed and spoke of hard working American Individualism. He searched for all avenues to reward American Individualism. His “pull yourself up by the boot straps” philosophy is what has made America great. He believed that if you free the American people from burdens of the federal government, the great innovators of the future and the great inventions will rise like cream to the top of the American economy. He believed that the best way to empower the lower income American is to employ them and incentivize them with their own innovation rather than enslave them with addiction to federal social services.