An “In my opinion” column by James A. Henry entitled “Reaganomics was a failure” states:
“Reagan’s economic policies sent the federal deficit to never-before-seen levels. His tax cuts did nothing but expand the gap between the wealthiest Americans and the middle class. The poverty rate during Reagan’s presidency actually rose. The great boom in American business and the economy that conservatives like to credit to Reagan actually came to fruition during the 1990s while Bill Clinton occupied the White House.
“Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts had as much to do with the economic boom of the 1990s as the Philadelphia Phillies’ penny-pinching during the same decade had to do with the ballclub’s recent success. Absolutely nothing, despite what those advocating those policies may want us to believe…”
NEWSLANC: Two wags of the tail for Mr. Henry. Not only was President Ronald Reagans so called economic accomplishments a myth (in fact they produced huge deficits), his vaunted winning of the Cold War is equally inaccurate. President Jimmy Carter who preceeded Reagan kept an almost daily journal from which excerpts have been published as “White House Diaries.” It is now apparent that in part due to very tough efforts taken by Carter against the Soviet Union in response to its invasion of Afghanistan and the ongoing dissolution of communist government control over Poland, that the days of the Soviet Union were numbered.
How many recall how President Gerald Ford was laughed at when, in a debate with Carter, he included Poland as one of the nations in which the Soviet grip was being loosened? He made a mistake; not because he was wrong but because what was taking place was top secret! It made him a laughing stock and may have cost him the presidency, that along with the then unpopular but now lauded pardoning of Richard Nixon.
This is not to detract from the credit due Reagan and George H. W. Bush for the vision and sensitivity they demonstrated in their dealings with the dissolution of the Soviet empire.
