Ronald Reagan: The Greatest President of all time!

Gallup polls consistently show that the American public esteems Ronald Reagan as much or more than any other president. Reagan consistently outpolls Bill Clinton, JFK, FDR, Lincoln and the founding fathers.

Why is this? It is easy to think, looking at Obama, that most presidents are embarrassing to the nation and not to be admired. However, Reagan continues to stand out so strongly because of his economic and geopolitical achievements. He realigned the American electorate both ideologically and on a partisan basis (with acknowledgements to Barry Goldwater) in a unique way.

Unlike many politicians today, he did this by governing from a clearly articulated set of principles---strong bedrock values to which he returned time and time again to convince Americans of the wisdom of his way.

In fact (again look at the putz in power now) usually Americans move toward the opposing party when the "other" party is in power. When Reagan was in power, the percentage of Americans identifying themselves a Republican actually increased by 3 percentage points (between 1981 and 1988 (from 27% to 30%)

As Zoran said in Star Trek "Time is the fire we burn in." It may be early to draw conclusions about Obama but in 2008. 36% or Americans identified with Democrats and 28% with Republicans. We were told that America's dalliance with market thinking and individual liberty had run it course. After two years in office, one out of every seven Democrats that had left the fold. Identification with the Democratic party had fallen from 36% to 31%

What about "The Gipper?" In 1980 party identification averaged 45% for the Democrats and just 23% for the GOP. During his first year in office Reagan fired thousand of striking air-traffic controllers (for those of you too young to remember, that's when some politicians had stones!), convinced Congress to enact his budget cuts and reversed many aspects of failed president Jimmy Carter.

Just like Obama, when Reagan took over the economy was struggling and dominated by a nasty recession (double digit unemployment, interest rates and inflation). Unlike Obama, he didn't keep on whining about how he inherited this problem.

Also, unlike Obama, the economy took off under his leadership, the Soviet empire collapses and the GOP surged from 24% in 1983 to29% in 1984 and 32% in 1985...it would remain at 30% or higher for the rest of the decade

The greatest lesson from Reagan's era is that not only must a president's agenda achieve results, but the agenda must be in sync with American's ideological centre of gravity---which is located on the Right.

Perhaps, Obama, should do some research on Reagan and learn a thing or two

What uh...what did he do about taxes? What were they like under Reagan?

they are all just sock puppets
just to let you know...

savings and loan crises

iran contra scandal

double digit unemployment

obama is actually pretty similar if you ask me !

reply to post by Kitilani


He did what he could at the time:

www.house.gov...

So I'm going to disagree and say George Washington was the best president ever.

That is all.

Washington and Jefferson may have him "beat", but Reagan was definitely the best president of my lifetime.

Reagan wasn't the best president, by far.. but history holds him in a very kind light.. he was charming and an excellent speaker, he also made some good moves.. but the best? no...

Edit: Yes I meant moves, I didn't mean movies .. never seen his film work, lol.

"Ron Paul is one of the outstanding leaders fighting for a stronger national defense. As a former Air Force officer, he knows well the needs of our armed forces, and he always puts them first. We need to keep him fighting for our country." - Ronald Reagan

....yes, we could all learn a little something from Ronald Reagan.

Reagan's definitely up there. Every President since him has basically either followed in the policy footsteps he created or tried to compare themselves to him. He has shaped the political landscape more than any President since FDR.

Actually, the double digit unemployment ended soon after Reagan took the helm. And stagflation was way worse than anything now: 21% interest on government bonds! (I actually had a client who bought them, back in 81', an rode them for every penny all those years. He literally became a millionaire by bucking that market..)

Reagan was excellent because he didn't get caught up in what we now call the "beltway echo chamber;" he didn't care what politicians thought of him---which actually earned him more respect.

He believed in America's future, and talked about it unabashedly.

He was never ugly, even to his harshest critics (compare to Obama's threat to Perry today "It's not wise to criticize the Federal Reserve....")

He was Funny.

It was obvious that almost all world leaders liked him personally, even in the midst of crisis.

He could speak well without notes. No President since him was really a public speaker. But he could talk, and say substantive things, without worrying about what might come out of his mouth.

Originally posted by bigsizzle
they are all just sock puppets

just to let you know...

Agreed.

This hero worship of figureheads is sickening, and reminds of the horrible Orwellian nightmare this country is becoming.

I would not go so far as to call him the greatest. For his time, I think he did a pretty good job overall, but his policies today would not work, as we can see with Obama. He had his good points and bad points, but I will say he was probably the best president we have had since.

The one thing that really sticks out to me that he did, and maybe because of my age so I may be a little off, but he seems to have got the ball rolling on attacking without approval from Congress. I feel for that instance he was right and Constitutionally correct in his actions in the bombings he ordered. He started it, albeit completely warranted, but ever since then every president seems to think they can just go drop bombs because Reagan did.

He also tried to shut the Department of Education down that Jimmy Carter created, but failed by Congress.

Originally posted by Skewed
For his time, I think he did a pretty good job overall, but his policies today would not work, as we can see with Obama.

Which of his policies wouldn't work today?

And what does Obama (the socialist antithesis of free enterprise) have to do with it?

Reagan was nothing more than an actor. He was a decent pres but no saint. Don't forget the blemishes on his record;
- Deficit spending, greatly expanded the size of government and debt
- Iran-contra
- Massive military spending, the MIC was in firm control thanks to Ronny, and they haven't looked back since.
- School of the Americas and other human-rights abuses in Latin America
- "trickle-down" economics that has been eroding the countries middle class

His hawkish stance on the Soviet Union helped push that country in bankruptcy, but other than that....

Originally posted by dr_strangecraft

Originally posted by Skewed
For his time, I think he did a pretty good job overall, but his policies today would not work, as we can see with Obama.

Which of his policies wouldn't work today?

And what does Obama (the socialist antithesis of free enterprise) have to do with it?

Actually, outside of the free market rhetoric history shows that Reagan was pretty neo-Keynesian.

2nd.

Originally posted by dr_strangecraft

Which of his policies wouldn't work today?

And what does Obama (the socialist antithesis of free enterprise) have to do with it?

What he said:

Originally posted by Blackmarketeer

- Deficit spending, greatly expanded the size of government and debt
- Iran-contra
- Massive military spending, the MIC was in firm control thanks to Ronny, and they haven't looked back since.
- School of the Americas and other human-rights abuses in Latin America
- "trickle-down" economics that has been eroding the countries middle class

His hawkish stance on the Soviet Union helped push that country in bankruptcy, but other than that....

And it is not necessarily that he did some of these things to the economy, but at that time it seemed to work. That is neither here nor there, the problem is that we stayed on the same status quo path, never looking around to see where we are heading. Not doing this did not allow us to make adjustments to the system when we saw problems brewing.

Everyone had the idea that if it is working now, it will always work. And now you see what we have.

Reagan's director of office of management and budget David Stockman would probably disagree.

Reagan would probably better fall under the most geniune or believable president of all time if anything.
Stockman basically asserted that Reagan was used by his advisors most of the time. He was nice but weak, easy to take advantage of.

Its the free market that got us into this position that we're in now. With no restrictions on the market, the market bubbles become rediculesly huge, which is why the 80's and 90's seen so much money into the market, it also encouraged the rich to invest more money into the market and keep trading to get more rich. But then as soon as there is a slight hint that the bubble may burst, everyone takes their money out of the market and money starts to just dissapear from it (2008, and the other week $2.5 trillion dissapeard) which is why now governments are throwing money into the markets to try and get peoples confidence back into the market, trying to give out the illusion that the bubble has not burst, but they all know it has so this economic smeg up was bound to happen.

Reagan was good for his period, but caused dissaster after. The restrictions on the market was placed after the great depression to make sure it would not happen again, and all Reagan did was take the restrictions off.

Thank you Reagan and Thatcher, your legacy still lives on with us.

Appologies for spelling, chrome has copped out on me.

I saw the title of this thread and LOL'D out loud.

That stuttering senile old fool..lol..the greatest..lol..president in history..LMAO

Read a fracking book!

Go to the library..omg..talk about brainwashed!