Your Questions About Fed Interest Rates 2011

Why do Conservatives need to create a myth that Reagan was anti-government when he was for Govt. efficiency?

Conservatives have a myth about Ronald Reagan. Will Bunch a senior writer for the Philadelphia Daily News, explains it best as” “Basically, people want Ronald Reagan remembered as the man who won the Cold War and as the man who turned the economy around … this idea that Reagan brought down the Berlin Wall and that he cut taxes and saved the American economy.”

None of this is really the truth, and much of what Reagan did was not what Conservatives today would approve of. He negotiated to cut Nukes with Soviets against his party. He was no Tea Party candidate, that is for sure. He was not anti-Government.

He was never talking about doing away with Medicaid, Medicare, or abolishing HUD. Conservatives also fail to mention that Reagan raised taxes throughout his presidency and was willing to reach out across the aisle to Democrats on major policies such as Social Security.
His greatest domestic accomplishment claim Conservatives, was turning back inflation that was very high in the late 1970s. They still claim it was a product of Reagan’s failed ‘supply side’ “trickle down” economics, but the vast majority of Economists tell us it was the stringent control of interest rates by then Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker that turned the economy around. Reagan also passed on a budget Deficit to Bush which Clinton later closed.

Reagan was very similar to Obama in that he is willing to negotiate with the other side and was all for more Government efficiency. He never wanted to cut our major Social programs or education budgets.

Does it seem like we have no more Reagan like members of the Republican party? Have Republican swung so far Right that they no longer represent the Reagan Republicans whatsoever? Do they need to create this myth in order to validate some of their failed policies and much further to the Right ideology?

http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/02/04/reagan.legacy/index.html

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/feb/3/real-reagan-clouded-by-myth/