>The Cold War was ending without him.
Actually, at the time Reagan took office, Soviet adventurism was at its peak having enjoyed a 10-year run from the detente period, aka appeasement policy, of Nixon/Ford/Carter. Soviet clients were very active in Central America, Africa, SE Asia, and so on. What changed with Reagan was the support of counter-insurgents to combat the Soviet-backed terrorists, instead of direct intervention. The US support of the Afghan freedom-fighter brought about the Soviet Union's version of Vietnam and led to their retrenchment. The Soviet military never recovered from this episode.
The other credit for the downfall of the Soviet Union was the inability for the Soviets to gain hard currency from the West due to restrictions on trade, the long recession of 1980-1982 which caused the fall of prices of natural resources on which the Soviets depended, Poland's shipworkers revolt (support by the Pope and the US was critical to them), and lastly, the economic mismanagement of the Soviet economy.
>The first term was horrible with the folly of Voodoo economics and
>trickle down didn't work at all and the supply side economics was
>one of the worst disasters of this countries economic history.
Actually, that was the same complaint during the first four years of the Clinton administration. The fact is when the economy recovers from a recession/depression, the unskilled are the last to benefit. The first to benefit are those who weathered through the downturn and next are those with skills or products in demand.
>You had him lying about Iran Contra.
The Boland Amendment was found to be unconstitutional. It just goes
to show how screwed up a Democratic Congress is to assist a Communist regime in Central America. Also, would you rather have had the hostages stay in Lebanon? They weren't being held for a matter of a few months, but for 3 or 4 years or more.
>Then you had the fiasco of the savings and loan which was something
>on Reagan's watch; no enforcement of audits and the word was out the
>government wasn't looking. Reagan policy created that mess.
The banking mess was created by the real estate mania of the 80's.
Then you had the HUD scandal. Then the defense contractor scandal. Horrible
President.
Bush; now there was a President history will hold up; a Truman type. Excellent
President. Quayle was the big glaring error. An idiot who would not have been
qualified to be a soda jerk, let alone President. A draft dogger using connections to
skip the draft in a safe uniform. |
