What exactly did Ronald Reagan accomplish that was so monumental to conservatives?

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• As a conservative who cast my first ever vote in a presidential election for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and came to regret it, I find it supremely puzzling how it can be that Reagan has been elevated to such a revered status by so many who call themselves conservatives. My understanding then and now was that the four essential pillars of the Reagan political philosophy were: 1)Cutting taxes 2)Balancing the budget 3)Reducing the size of government and 4)Strengthening the military. By any rational measures, Reagan failed utterly at the first three and, in my opinion, at all four.
  Looking at each in turn, Reagan's 1981 Tax Cut Bill which greatly favored the highest income brackets was more than offset by a substantial Social Security Tax increase two years later and a Medicare Tax increase in his second term. These were compounded with the largest Federal Gasoline Tax hike ever up to that time more than doubling the tax from 3.9 cents a gallon to 9 cents a gallon.

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  by Bannington on December 6th, 2009

• Social Security, Medicare, and the Gasoline Tax, including diesel fuel which increases the cost of all transported goods, are by far the most regressive of all federal taxes. To add insult to injury, the 1983 Social Security Bill began taxing benefits and the 1981 Tax Cut was nearly 60% repealed by the 1984 Deficit Reduction Act, again favoring the wealthy and corporations at the expense of the middle class. While the rich and the largest corporations got massive tax relief - the 1980's were a virtual tax holiday for corporations - almost all middle income wage and salary earners saw a bigger federal tax bite as a percentage of gross earnings taken out of their paychecks at the end of Reagan's eight years than at the beginning. Again and again Ronald Reagan is lauded as a great taxcutter. But Reagan's "tax cuts" were in reality only tax shifts from the top down.

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  by Bannington on December 6th, 2009

• To anyone who doubts that federal taxes were increased for most people under Reagan, I would ask you to get a copy of one of your W-2 Forms from 1980 or earlier if you were working then and compare it with a copy of your W-2 from 1988 or later. Unless your income was in the top 3%-4% of all earners or the majority of your income was from interest and dividends rather than wages or salary, YOUR TAXES WENT UP NOT DOWN.
  Under Reagan's successor George Bush, the process of "Destruction by Taxation" of the American middle class continued with the Omnibus Budget Act of 1990 that included another 5-cent increase in the gasoline tax. Taken altogether, the tax increases under the 12 years of Reagan and Bush totalled more in constant dollars than all the tax increases under the 12 years of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

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  by Bannington on December 6th, 2009

• Another one of the Reagan myths that needs to be debunked is that of Reagan as "guardian of the budget". Supposedly he stood steadfast against a spendthrift Democrat-controlled Congress. The fact is that 7 of the 8 budgets submitted by the Reagan Administration to Congress were CUT. That is, Reagan proposed to spend MORE than the tax-and-spend Democrats would allow. During the 8 years that Reagan was in office he never once vetoed a major appropriations or tax bill. One result is that federal spending increased by an inflation-adjusted 7% under Reagan, more than twice the rate under Carter.
  As for the 2nd pillar of Reaganism, balancing the federal budget, his failure here is so well documented it hardly needs any review. He never came close to submitting a balanced budget and as a consequence, the budget deficit as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product grew throughout his administration as well as that of his successor. The national debt nearly doubled in just his first term.

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  by Bannington on December 6th, 2009