Your inclusion of welfare reform, which was indisputably forced on him by the Republicans, is indicative of the reliability of your portrait. The reason, more than anything, that the budget was finally balanced was that Reagan and Bush won the Cold War, and therefore we were able to downsize the military. In other words, the cause of Reagan's willingness to run up deficits (prevailing over the Soviet Union) was also their cure. Of course, a corollary is that Clinton inherited unprecedented peace and prosperity, after the brief recession caused by structural adjustments as the defense establishment reduced its size. (The Bush recession lasted less than a year, and growth resumed at a robust pace). Of course, in the end, the acceleration of growth after 95 had mostly to do with the digital revolution.
As for crime dropping, the major cities were fortunate to mostly have Republican mayors. Also, in analyzing what happened, almost every serious analyst agrees that the crack wars of the 80s finally resolved themselves. Players were killed or incarcerated, and territories were stabilized, so that gang warfare decreased markedly. Additionally, both Republican and Democrat urban administrations began instituting community policing and following the "broken windows" thesis, that letting too much slide at a lower level encourages a sense of lawlessness.
In the case of Northern Ireland, a lot of groundwork was prepared before his administration by the parties themselves, for example, in increasing cooperation between London and Dublin, and the heavy lifting was done by George Mitchell.
As for the National Monuments, well, those were quite controversial, and not clearly correct decisions....... |
