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David: The Reagan propaganda that we've been seeing recently has brought to light a lot
of interesting things about Ronald Reagan. We just surpassed the... it would've been
his hundredth birthday, and there was a lot of media surrounding, I guess it's the reopening
or just the re-- a ribbon-cutting took place at his presidential library. And we saw news
networks flying there to cover it.
And for a while we've been talking, Louis, about how Ronald Reagan has been to many conservatives
over the last few years somewhat of a hero, someone that they point back to and say if
we could only have a Reagan Republican. And it's even gone further than that. I mean,
candidates are compared to Ronald Reagan in many ways. Ronald Reagan has become almost
a de facto standard for current Republican candidates. How conservative are they relative
to Ronald Reagan? How much do they represent true conservatism with Ronald Reagan as the
barometer?
And Think Progress, and really, there are a lot of these, but the one I looked at most
recently is Think Progress, and they pointed out, there's a lot about Ronald Reagan that,
number one, is not conservative, but number two, just doesn't seem to even be... the collective
amnesia that we've been talking about of the Republican Party is very clear when we talk
about Ronald Reagan. I mean, on tax cuts, although Ronald Reagan did famously, as we
hear from conservatives, decrease the marginal tax rate, many people don't even get that
it is a marginal rate, on the top income earners, he raised taxes 11 times. State spending nearly
doubled under Ronald Reagan.
And we hear hedging when this is-- when conservatives are confronted with these facts, they say
well, the situation was one where he didn't really have much of a choice. Fine, but let's
use that same standard when we talk about things Barack Obama has had to do. If we're
going to talk about the situation is such that he had no choice but to stray from his
ideals or his campaign talking points, let's allow everybody that... let's allow that to
Louis: Right. Let Obama do what he has to do because of our deficit.
David: That's right. And speaking of deficit, Ronald Reagan tripled, almost tripled, the
federal budget deficit. It increased, the debt increased by nearly $3 trillion, roughly
three times as much as the first 80 years of the century had done altogether. Again,
the conservative myth is tax cuts and decreasing the deficit, let's put the map up if we have
it, please, on the back. This is the deficit, and you can see very clearly over time, Bush/Reagan,
explosion of the deficit. And an almost complete elimination under Bill Clinton. If you want
to hedge on one of them by saying hey, it was the times, let's allow that latitude to
everybody.
Well, what do you... what's your reaction to this, Louis? Do we have an unfair, a double
standard when it comes to what people are handed, what presidents are handed when they
come into office?
Louis: Well, clearly.
David: All right. Well, we've heard it from Louis. Thank you, Louis. [Laughs] Unemployment.
Unemployment soared after Reagan's 1981 tax cuts. We hear all the time, you cut taxes,
you reduce unemployment. At face value, we know it is absurd. Everybody we talk to who
is hiring people, from small businesses where the owner makes $50,000 up to multi-million-dollar
CEOs, tax cuts don't drive demand, and they don't drive hiring. Tax cuts for the rich,
that is, particularly, which is the only place Reagan really cut taxes. They went up multiple
times elsewhere. You're going to hire people because you get a three-percentage point tax
cut at the very top? No. The people who are buying your products won't have any more--
any extra money.
So, and this list goes on and on. Reagan grew the size of the federal government tremendously.
He did very little to fight for legal and safe... fight against, rather, legal and safe
abortions. Many conservatives point to Ronald Reagan as a pro-life advocate. He actually
signed in the bill in California that liberalized the state's abortion laws. And it goes on.
He talks in his memoirs about wanting a world free of nuclear weapons, he gave amnesty to
3 million undocumented immigrants. What about calling the amnesty program now when it's
discussed the Reagan program? What's the real difference? This is the program that Reagan
used years ago. You're not going to hear any of that from conservatives who tout Ronald
Reagan's conservative credentials. What do you make of this, Louis?
Louis: Well, if people are using him as their barometer, I guess it's still fair to use
him as a barometer for what he stood for and what he wanted to do and what his plans were.
David: Even though he didn't do any of it?
Louis: That must be it. That must be what people are comparing themselves to.
David: So let's just use... let's use campaign... in that case, Louis, let's take it a step
further. Even though Rand Paul campaigned on no more earmarks and no more spending and
eliminate the Department of Education, he's not going to do any of those things, but from
now on, we will refer to those proposals, the no more earmarks proposal, that's the
Rand Paul proposal. And people will say well, hold on a second, Rand Paul didn't do what--
he didn't do that. He didn't do any of those things. No, but he campaigned on it. That's
what it's... politicians are so inherently liars that we don't even judge proposals by
what politicians do, simply what they campaign on.
Louis: 25 years from now, who knows how people will look at Rand Paul?
David: Right. He is the earmark guy. What can we do?
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