Reagan and the New Reality
When people say Reagan allowed Americans to stand tall and be proud again, the implied contrast is always with Carter. Poor Carter, as he has said more than once, did not actually use the word "malaise" in a famous speech, but I believe it was present in a draft that the media saw.
UPDATE: See the whole story of the "malaise" speech from PBS (link via the Corner). Patrick Caddell used the word "malaise" in a memo, and Carter decided he wanted to use the whole memo as the basis for a major speech--but the word didn't actually make it.
More to the point, the speech told Americans they should settle for less--less economic growth, less discretionary spending, perhaps less pleasure--not for the sake of some glorious outcome, but simply because this was the way the world was. The Americans may be the last people on earth who would take this message cheerfully--perhaps the French would have been more outraged.
UPDATE: Virginia Postrel has more on this (Link via Hit and Run).
It wasn't just Carter, it was the 70s--inflation, crime, oil crisis, hostages in Iran. There was a lot of middle-class fear that problems were out of control. I was in an economics class in the early 70s in which a professor said "stagflation"--a combination of high unemployment and high inflation--might be here to stay. If we reduced one problem, we would make the other worse.
Reagan seemed to make at least some of the "malaise" go away, as if by magic. Tim Noah is no doubt correct that Reagan, contrary to his promises, didn't actually reduce spending or the size of government while he was cutting taxes--he simply ran up deficits. Like W, he threatened wars on evil enemies, but he was careful to only attack pipsqueaks. At the risk of one of those statements that's a little too neat, if Carter offered sacrifice with no particular goal in sight, and certainly no glory, Reagan offered glory without sacrifice. And (one could argue) delivered it.
Walter Berns used to point out that it was Jimmy Carter, the Democrat, who imposed a grain embargo on the Soviet Union over Afghanistan; it was Reagan the Republican who lifted the embargo so that American farmers wouldn't suffer. Why should any American have to pay a price to change the world, if there is an easier way?
Of course one can question the long-term effects of Reagan's successes. Did it teach younger Americans that they can have even more, still without paying much of a price? If Communism can fall in so many countries as a result (at least in part) of some tough negotiations and defence spending, along with the Helsinki Accord (stressed by Democrats more than Republicans), then why not move on and transform other parts of the world? If America is greatest by far, surely no attack on U.S. soil can be met with less than a tremendous, history-making attack somewhere? In short, Reagan may have inspired the invasion of Iraq, both for better and for worse.
I believe the only kind of spending Reagan actually cut was transfers to the states--and this cut was probably possible mainly because Senators and members of Congress are less likely to fight to maintain spending that the States end up taking credit for. Because of the reduced revenue imposed by Reagan, the states became policy innovators--the book "Reinventing Government" is largely about the results. Did Reagan intend these largely positive results? Who knows?
One way the states solved their revenue problem was with more gambling. Did Reagan--does any Republican--care? Who knows?
Reagan definitely did cut taxes, and as someone just said, taxes once cut are hard to raise again. More than that, he made tax-cutting not only respectable, but a kind of moral requirement in the political agenda. The federal government also developed a "revenue problem," and this made it more permissible or mandatory for Democrat Bill Clinton to promise, and then deliver (with a Republican Congress) an end to "welfare as we know it."
So: Reagan changed the agenda, no question.
Lou Cannon's obit is wonderful, among other reasons for the stress on Reagan being a pragmatist as well as an ideologue. This is something the true believers don't like to talk about, and because it shows his intelligence, his critics don't like to admit. One of his first initiatives as governor of California was a huge tax increase to eliminate the deficit. This succeeded so well, the state in a few years literally had more revenues than it knew what to do with. This enraged some taxpayers, especially those who no longer had children in school, or did not see themselves as users of government services. The Proposition 13 movement (led by pretty obscure people, not by Reagan) was a result. Did Reagan intend this? Who knows?
Tax-cutting may or may not stimulate the economy. If people think their lives have less security provided by government, or they are more on their own economically, this may foster the entrepreneurial spirit for which Americans are famous. Regardless of this kind of "social science," or Keynesian economics whether emphasizing the demand side or the supply side, voters responded very favourably to a "tax cuts/smaller government" message. And why shouldn't voters be able to reduce government, or at least slow its rate of growth, if they choose to?
I believe both John Rawls and his student Amy Gutman reached the point of saying certain big expensive government programs should be protected as constitutional rights, not subject to the decisions of politicians. But if most of the budget is out of the control of the people, we won't have a democracy.
George Will says that with his firing of air traffic controllers (after an illegal strike) early in his presidency, Reagan deserves credit for opening up the whole private sector to more flexibility in hiring and firing, and thus to gains in efficiency and productivity. Here's the magic again: more ability to fire leads to more actual hiring in a growing economy. Will even suggests briefly that the information technology revolution, which largely happened after Reagan, was triggered by the firing of the controllers.
Will doesn't mention the fortune that the U.S. federal government has consistently spent on research--much of it branded, and given security from cuts by this branding--as "military." One part of government spending that grew astronomically under Reagan was defence spending, including "Star Wars." It's been explained to me that whether or not any equipment ever functions to shoot down incoming missiles, the program has been a vast expenditure in research of many different kinds--some of them apparently "pure" research, with no direct link to weapons.
I met an engineer in the U.S. once who said many of his friends from engineering school went to work in the "military-industrial complex," and much of what went on there was "welfare for engineers." In other words, in this vastly expensive area, growth of government is OK, wasteful spending is OK, everything is OK because it attracts the best and the brightest, members of Congress fight for spending in their own districts and states, and it is protected by the aura of "national security."
It is not entrepreneurship (the private sector) alone which causes the U.S. to be the innovators in science and technology so often: it is, I would suggest, vast government spending which ends up largely in the hands of people who are capable of thinking like entrepreneurs. I think that combination is very difficult to reproduce anywhere else. True believers in Reagan, including Will, don't like to talk about the government spending part of it. Liberals have a distaste for defence spending, and don't like to admit that many of the best and brightest in our world (at least in the U.S.) function and excel in the world of high-tech research that may spin off from military spending.
How much of this did Reagan understand? Who knows?
Dealing with the Soviets: Reagan was largely confrontational in his first term, and largely committed to negotiations (with "evil") in his second term. Did he plan this--softening the Soviets up first with massive spending on technology, including missiles in Europe, that they couldn't possibly keep up with? Who knows?
Probably the analogy to FDR is a very good one. Both Reagan and FDR were underestimated by many bright people. When people study Reagan, they often find him (away from the podium) a man of few, simple words--almost unreflective except in the direction of wing-nut theories about astrology or the end of the world. Of course there was a standard "government should be smaller/government is the problem" speech which seems nuts given his actual record as governor and president. At best I suppose it was an overblown, mythological rationale for cutting taxes. Sometimes to explain how government could disappear from people's lives, he referred to voluntary communities of family, church, service group, etc.--institutions which he treated more or less with contempt in his own life.
I suppose he was either very deep or very shallow.
UPDATE: See Josh Green from early 2003 (via Atrios). Reagan achieved some significant "liberal" goals, especially after the Democrats did well in 1982 in response to Reagan's talk of gutting Social Security.
Reagan did build a coalition--of social conservatives and pro-business (often libertarian) tax-cutters. As is often the case in politics, the coalition was an unlikely one. The movement intellectuals and Republican party hacks can benefit from talking as if the combined movement exists, and is accomplishing one goal after another. It is important to maintain Reagan as the saint/hero of this combined conservative movement. In fact he was something much more human and probably more likeable or interesting than that.
As has been pointed out, if the U.S. Supreme Court's conservative appointees actually succeeded in striking down Roe v. Wade, and denying that there is a constitutional right to abortion, this issue would have to be fought out in every state legislature, as well as Congress. It is unlikely the present-day Republican party could survive. (Scalia has said there is no constitutional rule against abortion, any more than there is a constitutional right to have one). For the movement to get what it supposedly wants, would destroy it.
UPDATE 2: Mickey Kaus, as usual, does a good job on a few brief points, especially:
- welfare reform
- the meaning of equality
- tax reform/closing loopholes/making the system fairer (identified by Josh Green as a tax increase)(Kaus criticizes Clinton for being addicted to new special deductions/loopholes/shelters, i.e. greater complexity and unfairness
- the air traffic controllers (see also Will)
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