Ronald Reagan: An Assessment

President Ronald Reagan passed away today in California. He and his successor, George H.W. Bush, successfully presided over the end of the Cold War, leading to a period of American hegemony that we find ourselves in today. Reagan was a staunch anti-communist. However, after ramping up military investments early in his Presidency, Reagan had the good sense to reach out to Mikhail Gorbachev and seek arms controls just as the Soviet Empire was crumbling. By the time he left office, the Cold War was all but over, and his successor, George H.W. Bush, used his considerable diplomatic skills to smooth the transition.

Reagan was a popular president-- his approval ratings are very close to those of Bill Clinton, another popular two-term President. He had a sunny and optimistic disposition that made many Americans feel that the problems they faced could be solved. Although many Americans did not like his policies, they liked the man himself.

His domestic policies were less successful than his foreign policy. His experiments with supply side economics eventually produced enormous budget deficits. Both he and his successor George H.W. Bush had to compensate for the fiscal problems his early policies created by raising taxes, which eventually helped cost Bush the 1992 election. Reagan's domestic policies and cuts in social programs exacerbated increasing income and wealth inequality in the United States which continues to this day. His decision to underfund enforcement of financial regulations led directly to the Savings and Loan Crisis which culminated during George H.W. Bush's presidency, and cost the country billions of dollars.

The most serious blemish on his presidency was the Iran Contra scandal, in which members of his Administration misled and in some cases lied to Congress, engaging in covert transactions in the 1980s to provide funds to the Nicaraguan contra rebels from profits gained by selling arms to Iran. Congress had enacted legislation prohibiting the Defense Department, the CIA, or any other government agency from providing military aid to the contras. The U.S. also had a trade and arms embargo with Iran. The Reagan Administration attempted to get around these legal restrictions by using the National Security Council to supervise covert military aid to the contras and secretly sell and ship arms to Iran, using the proceeds to fund the contras.

Not only did members of the Reagan Administration violate federal law but they also obstructed Congressional investigations into the matter, thus creating a constitutional crisis. Barely a decade after Nixon's resignation, the country had no taste for a second impeachment investigation, but the violations of the Constitution implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal were very serious indeed. In 1992 Reagan's successor, George H.W. Bush, pardoned Caspar Weinberger and other officials who had been indicted or convicted for withholding information on or obstructing investigation of the affair. The pardons forestalled further inquiry into the matter.

In the long run, Presidents are judged by the balance of their successes and failures. By any account, Reagan's Presidency had its share of accomplishments. And politically Reagan was an absolutely pivotal figure, who helped create the successful political coalition of religious conservatives, economic conservatives, suburbanites, Southerners, and working class whites that forms the contemporary Republican Party. Reagan's political success can be measured by the fact that he shaped the terms of debate for the next several presidents who succeeded him. Indeed, Bill Clinton's remark that "the end of big government is over" was an acknowledgement that Reagan's presidency had fundamentally shifted the terms of political debate.

Of the twentieth century presidents, Reagan falls somewhere in the middle of the pack. He was not as great a figure as FDR, Truman, Wilson, or Teddy Roosevelt. On the other hand, he was certainly more successful than Taft, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Nixon, Carter, and George H.W. Bush. Reagan is a combination of successes and failures, of accomplishments and liabilities. He falls into the middle category of presidents like Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson, (all of whom, coincidentally, served one after another in the middle of the century), who had both important accomplishments and failures, although he is really like none of them.

Reagan is the only successful president in the twentieth century who was also a strongly ideological conservative (I do not count the environmentalist, trustbusting TR as a conservative, and Eisenhower was far more moderate than today's conservatives). Liberals, by contrast, are spoiled for choice, for they can point to several great and near great presidents in the twentieth century. For this reason alone, we can expect continuing and fervent attempts by conservatives to canonize Reagan in as many ways as possible. In some ways that is unfortunate, for these attempts will probably keep Reagan a more divisive figure than he should be. In hindsight, I predict that both liberals and conservatives will find things to admire about the man. And in twenty years' time we will have a much better picture of his accomplishments.