@ThePainefulTruth Said
Well, supposed conservatives like the establishment Republican socialist lites.
Negatore. First there was FDR with Social Security and the "New Deal" in the 30's. But the real damage was done by Johnston after he had Kennedy assassinated then cranked up the Great Society and the War of Poverty after he was (re)-elected in '84. Yes, the Republicans have been pretty much a bunch of limp-wristed, scared-of-their-own-media-shadow appeasers since then (except for Reagan), until the advent of the Tea Party. The evidence of that is the difference between McCain and Romney. McCain thought the media liked him, until he was nominated as the least likely candidate. Score one for the press.
Even Reagan had to pay homage to politics. He got taxes cut, enormously, but had to sign a bunch of spending bills in the process. Ax yourself, how did he get taxes cut from 70 to 28% and yet increase revenues as well as spending. The Dems know why but it's the last thing they or the media are going to let on about.
Ax yourself. Things you should know about Reagan.
1) Reagan raised taxes in seven of his eight years in office, including four times in just two years.
2) During the Reagan years, the debt increased to nearly $3 trillion, “roughly three times as much as the first 80 years of the century had done altogether.” Reagan enacted a major tax cut his first year in office and government revenue dropped off precipitously.
3) Unemployment jumped to 10.8 percent after Reagan enacted his much-touted tax cut, and it took years for the rate to get back down to its previous level. Meanwhile, income inequality exploded.
4) Reagan grew the size of the federal government tremendously. Reagan promised “to move boldly, decisively, and quickly to control the runaway growth of federal spending,” but federal spending “ballooned” under Reagan.
5) Reagan illegally funneled weapons to Iran. Reagan and other senior U.S. officials secretly sold arms to officials in Iran, which was subject to a an arms embargo at the time, in exchange for American hostages. Some funds from the illegal arms sales also went to fund anti-Communist rebels in Nicaragua — something Congress had already prohibited the administration from doing. When the deals went public, the Iran-Contra Affair, as it came to be know, was an enormous political scandal that forced several senior administration officials to resign.
6) Reagan helped create the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. Reagan fought a proxy war with the Soviet Union by training, arming, equipping, and funding Islamist mujahidin fighters in Afghanistan. Reagan funneled billions of dollars, along with top-secret intelligence and sophisticated weaponry to these fighters through the Pakistani intelligence service. The Talbian and Osama Bin Laden — a prominent mujahidin commander — emerged from these mujahidin groups Reagan helped create, and U.S. policy towards Pakistan remains strained because of the intelligence services’ close relations to these fighters. In fact, Reagan’s decision to continue the proxy war after the Soviets were willing to retreat played a direct role in Bin Laden’s ascendancy.
https://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/02/05/142288/reagan-centennial/