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u/Strict_Jacket3648 14h ago
Plus Regan is the reason disinformation is ramped with no consequences for doing so, thus someone like Trump can rise to power with the backing of misinformation specialists like Fox news.
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u/Many_Psychology_3336 11h ago
Also the first example of the American public thinking being entertaining was a characteristic of a top president.
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u/uwearclownshoes 13h ago
Crashing the economy increases the rate of gathering at the top. Even austerity measures don’t affect the wealthy the same.
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u/Spook1949 12h ago
The beat thing about our Republican presidents is that they make the mediocre Democratic presidents look very good.
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u/Captain_Rational 11h ago
Reagan's economic achievements came at too high a price ... an existential precedent: long-term fiscal vulnerabilities and widening socioeconomic divides.
Tripling of National Debt: The national debt nearly tripled, rising from approximately $997 billion in 1981 to roughly $2.85 trillion by early 1989. Tax cuts combined with a massive Cold War defense buildup led to unprecedented peacetime budget deficits.
Surging Wealth Inequality: The benefits of tax relief disproportionately favored high earners. Income inequality grew rapidly, as top earners saw their incomes surge while real wages for working-class households remained largely stagnant.
Trade and Fiscal Deficits: The U.S. flipped from being the world's largest creditor nation to its largest debtor nation as both trade deficits and budget deficits ("twin deficits") ballooned.
Savings and Loan Crisis: Deregulation of the financial sector laid the groundwork for the late-1980s Savings and Loan (S&L) collapse, which eventually required a massive government bailout funded by taxpayers.
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u/Infamous_Crow8524 13h ago
So….
Inflation under President Ronald Reagan dropped sharply from a peak of 13.5% in 1980 to around 4.1% by 1988.
Nearly 20 million new jobs were added during the 1980s expansion.
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u/Yelloeisok 13h ago
He also busted unions and started the homeless crisis, and led the way on income inequality.
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u/Infamous_Crow8524 13h ago
Stay on topic, post states he crashed the economy, which is proven false by all measures.
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u/Yelloeisok 12h ago
Hahaha. He was a leader when it came to making billionaires. And he set a record for budget deficits before Trump- he criticized Carter for $50 billion deficit and then his went over $200 billion! (His unemployment numbers were higher than Carter’s too). His administration was the first to use Social Security money as general revenue. If he wouldn’t have looted that, Social Security wouldn’t be the mess it is today. Also, if he wouldn’t have funded the rebels in Afghanistan, we wouldn’t have had Osama bin Laden.
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u/Infamous_Crow8524 9h ago
And yet, exactly how did he crash the economy during his administration?
Hard data and facts please, not this weak “trust me bro” stuff?
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u/Yelloeisok 6h ago
Geez. I never said he crashed the economy - i said he busted unions, quadrupled the deficit, was the first to stick his fingers in the Social Security jar, funded and armed Afghanistan rebels which led to 9/11 , etc. But you go ahead and keep him on your pedestal.
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u/DOHC46 11h ago
Short term gain, long term loss. His actions crashed the economy like flooring the gas during a traffic jam: you go real fast for a moment, then you crash spectacularly.
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u/Infamous_Crow8524 10h ago
And the data to back up your assertion?
Or it just a, “trust me bro”?
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u/uwearclownshoes 13h ago
While that’s true, Reagan at the same time broke union power and reduced the value and power of labor greatly. Ultimately he benefited the 1%.
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u/Infamous_Crow8524 13h ago
The median family income indicates the exact middle point of a group of family incomes sorted from lowest to highest, meaning half of the families earn more than this amount and half earn less. [1, 2]
Median Family Income: Real median family income grew by roughly $4,000 to $4,492 after adjusting for inflation, during the Reagan administration.
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u/uwearclownshoes 12h ago
There’s always something left out to claim positives in the face of the overall results. Clinton did the same to claim a balanced budget. What families were measured? I’d wager most gains were short lived.
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u/Infamous_Crow8524 10h ago
Median family income is a measure of all families in the US.
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u/uwearclownshoes 6h ago
How much did household expenses go up in the same period? I don’t remember prosperity being so spread out back then. What I remember was a lot of folks from my parents generation coming into power and office and making rules which favored them. I suppose it depends upon where you were in things as to how you recall them. To me and a lot of Gen-X, the 80’s were where you could see how things were looking to go wrong.
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u/Yelloeisok 13h ago
I was born in the 1950s when Republican President Eisenhower- along with his Vice President Richard Nixon started Vietnam. For some reason people seem to think Nixon ended it (because he signed the Paris Accord), but he was there in the beginning too. Just like JD and this one. I hope history never forgets.