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It should cause no shortage of frustration for congressional Republicans that President Obama is in line with the Reagan legacy — and they’re actively rejecting it. Politico’s David Rogers had a fine piece of reporting touching on this point yesterday.
With the nation at risk of default next month, the Republicans’ fierce anti-tax orthodoxy is running square into the Ghost of the Gipper — the GOP’s great modern, pre-tea party hero, Ronald Reagan.
Indeed, a POLITICO review of Reagan’s own budget documents shows that the Republican president repeatedly signed deficit-reduction legislation in the 1980’s that melded annual tax increases with spending cuts just as President Barack Obama is now asking Congress to consider.
Rogers’ analysis found that the tax increases Reagan agreed to, as part of negotiations with a Democratic Congress — increases that included raising the gasoline tax and payroll taxes — are actually bigger than anything the Obama White House is proposing now. (On taxes, this puts Reagan slightly to Obama’s left.) For that matter, it’s also worth noting that the conservative Republicans of the 1980s were absolutely certain that Reagan’s policy would destroy the economy, and as part of the right’s unyielding track record of failure, they were wrong.
The larger point, though, is that when the 40th president sat down with lawmakers to work on debt reduction, he accepted as a given that the agreement would include a combination of spending cuts and tax increases. The debate would be over the ratio. Indeed, it’s one of the reasons Reagan ended up raising taxes in seven out of the eight years he was in office. (Remember, “no peacetime president has raised taxes so much on so many people” as Reagan.)
What’s more, Reagan’s views on the debt ceiling weren’t exactly vague.
In a November 1983 letter to then-Senate Majority Leader Howard H. Baker Jr. (R-Tenn.), Reagan warned that without a higher debt ceiling, the country could be forced to default for the first time in its history.
Reagan wrote: “The full consequences of a default — or even the serious prospect of default — by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and the value of the dollar.”
This really shouldn’t matter. Republicans should simply realize that raising the debt ceiling is the sane thing to do and act accordingly. But given Republicans’ religious reverence for “Ronaldus Magnus,” it’s worth appreciating the extent to which today’s GOP is deliberately turning its back on the Reagan legacy.
Mike Huckabee recently said, “Ronald Reagan would have a very difficult, if not impossible, time being nominated in this atmosphere of the Republican Party.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) had a nearly identical take last year, arguing Reagan “would have a hard time getting elected as a Republican today.”
I agree, but what does that tell contemporary GOP officials? What should Republicans take away from the fact that, by 2011 standards, their party would dismiss their demigod as a tax-raising, amnesty-loving, pro-bailout, cut-and-run, big-government Democrat?
Or more to the point, doesn’t it bother Republicans, just a little, that Barack Obama is more in line with the Reagan legacy than they are?
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LL on July 02, 2011 11:10 AM:
more to the point, does it not bother Republicans, just a little, that Barack Obama is more in line with the Reagan legacy than they are?
No. Why should it? Reagan is a prop for them, that's all. Any kind of quasi-objective truth has been meaningless to the GOP for at least a generation. If not much longer.
c u n d gulag on July 02, 2011 11:18 AM:
Like LL said, today's Republicans don't worship Reagan the President - they worship Reagan the myth.
The truth of the matter is that Reagan might be too Liberal today for the Democratic Party.
Davis X. Machina on July 02, 2011 11:21 AM:
Himself is no longer with us, so we rely on zealot-converts for our understanding of the founder, and the meaning of his life and deeds and saying.
We're in the St. Paul generation of Republicanism.
Looking at this process at work in Christianity over the centuries, I fear this won't end well.
JS on July 02, 2011 11:30 AM:
Keep pointing out the Reagan that was, not the Reagan the wingnuts want him to be. Reagan would be as much of a Democrat as Abe Lincoln if they showed up today.
My own view is that Reagan will ultimately fall toward the bottom of the ranking of Presidents, once historians have some perspective of what 30 years of "tax cuts, deregulation and war-mongering" have done to this country.
kevo on July 02, 2011 11:33 AM:
Yet another piece of evidence the current crop of Republicans are bring it! And just what is it?
sabotage and malfeasance
or for those who believe those Republicans are middle-aged wealthy dolts,
stupidity disguised as conviction
Behind closed Republican doors (for the former statement): "Principles, what principles, we don't need no stinking principles!"
(For the latter): "Now we got President Obama over a barrel, he'll cave any minute!" -Kevo
Bartender on July 02, 2011 11:37 AM:
I can't believe I'm actually saying this, being a non-con (non-conservative), but will the ghost of Ronald Reagan PLEASE interrupt your tranquil peace by awaking along enough to scare some common sense into the new right? They are on the verge of destroying what's left (and I mean "what's left") of our economy.
skeptonomist on July 02, 2011 11:41 AM:
Why do liberal pundits feel compelled to repeat this crap about Reagan raising taxes in order to balance the budget? Yes, there were certainly increases in payroll taxes, but the progressivity of income tax rates was essentially wiped out during Reagan's term, and the budget was far from balanced. Reagan (and Congress) drastically reduced taxes on rich people. Debt/GDP had decreased until around 1980, but then took a sharp turn upward and was considerably higher at the end of Reagan's term and higher still after Bush I. Reagan was never "responsible" about the budget - nor, for that matter, were Democrats in Congress at that time.
truthbetold on July 02, 2011 11:44 AM:
No longer a party Reagan would recognize it is no longer the party Lincoln would recognize.
zeitgeist on July 02, 2011 11:44 AM:
doesn’t it bother Republicans, just a little, that Barack Obama is more in line with the Reagan legacy than they are?
Who it should really bother is us. If there were ever a scorecard for the failings of the left as a political force, this surely is it: the most liberal President we've been able to elect, one that the right labels a "socialist" without being laughed out of mainstream circles, is politically in line with Reagan.
If there is a clearer measure of how far the Overton Window has moved to the right, I'm not sure what it would be.
We have our work cut out for us.
stevio on July 02, 2011 11:50 AM:
The GOP are the "Honey Badgers" of politics today. They don't give a shit about anything. They have become a bunch of nihilists that use props like Ronnie Raygunzap as symbols not knowing a hoot what the man did or why he did it. They, simply put, just don't give a shit. Period.
When the economy crashes they'll, and their cooperate handlers, pin it on Obama and there will be enough angst to topple the despised black guy and put in his stead some non-intellectualy curious "thing" that will complete the task that the robber barons couldn't: Amass ALL the wealth on the backs of their "workers". That is if you think of people in service-oriented "jobs" as middle class.
Third-world status here we come. Hope there's baloney being handed-out with the bread and soup. I'll be hungry after my long wait in those soup lines. Nauseating...
lou on July 02, 2011 12:00 PM:
You ask the Republicans to be introspective?
In this respect they are acting as a body much like George W. Bush. Once they set their course there is no looking back. This already ended badly for Bush and the country but the Republicans are determined to see it out to the BITTER END.
ben on July 02, 2011 12:05 PM:
Zeitgeist is right. I don't care how Republicans feel about it. Shouldn't Democrats be bothered that "Barack Obama is more in line with the Reagan legacy than" Republicans?
Steve on July 02, 2011 12:15 PM:
"Or more to the point, doesn't it bother Republicans, just a little, that Barack Obama is more in line with the Reagan legacy than they are?"
And, as others have pointed out above, shouldn't it just scare the willies out of Democrats?
samsa on July 02, 2011 12:17 PM:
When one side gives an example of the heroes of the other side to entice the opponents to a compromise, the battle is already lost.
Obama, as many people have been saying for some time, is a terrible negotiator.
Nobody wants him to be combative and fight on every little issue, but the spectacle of his preemptive concessions before the start of negotiations has been repeated too often. Either he does not have the capacity to learn from past mistakes, or the outcomes that he achieves with his style are the precise outcomes that he is after.
In any case, liberals do not have a person in the White House who is helpful to their agenda. I think that the Americans other than the top earners do not either.
mtboy on July 02, 2011 12:19 PM:
No.
Cal Gal on July 02, 2011 12:25 PM:
As the Unwelcome Voice of Sanity so clearly demonstrated, denial (about Reagan's history of raising taxes) is not just a river in Egypt for today's republiCons.
Schtick on July 02, 2011 12:34 PM:
Stevio, you're right. When everything finally tanks, thanks to the repubs, they will blame everything they have admitted done, to get Obama out of office and no other reason, on Obama and the dems. Problem is again, the public buys into it and votes the outlaws back in power.
I am hating what this country has become. There is no "give and take" anymore. It's give me, give me, give me what I want right now or I'll bury you. Like a bunch of rich spoiled brats.
crapcha....political fordstua....ha ha ha
pluege on July 02, 2011 12:40 PM:
this 'republicans today would reject reagan' is complete horseshit for mental midgets.
reagan pushed the rightwing extremist boundaries at the 1980's boundaries. He would be doing EXACTLY THE SAME today; reagan would out batshit insane bachmann, palin, king, boehner, mcconell, cantor, demint, and the rest of the wingnut republican flotsam were he around today. Likewise, the current republican insane asylum would be unreocgnizibly placid had theyr trolled in the 1980's. reagan was made from the exact same pile of human excrement that today's republicans are made from - he is truly one of them.
T2 on July 02, 2011 12:41 PM:
We are now three days into Schumer's remarks accusing the GOP of purposeful sabotage of the nation's economy in order to wound Obama. Still not a word of push back from the GOP.
Jon on July 02, 2011 1:18 PM:
The wingers are all in a dither over your questioning their fragile, carefully tended orthodoxy, Steve. Do Not Mess With Their Cognitive Dissonance! It causes them the worst sort of migraines, and then they start thinking those unwelcome voices in their heads are sane, and then oh who knows what they'll do!
jjm on July 02, 2011 1:37 PM:
The Republicans are becoming increasingly ridiculous and irrelevant.
It's clear the only party interested in governing is the democratic party.
They are clearly working for foreign interests. I note that McConnell REFUSES to vote for free trade bills if they include assistance for American workers.
How did they get so completely screwed up?
JEA on July 02, 2011 1:55 PM:
In the last decade the policy of the Republican Party has crossed the line from policy to dogma.
Don Durito on July 02, 2011 4:51 PM:
It should also bother Democrats and especially "progressives" who seem to support Obama w/o question that Obama's positions are more in keeping with Reagan's legacy than, say, FDR's legacy.
LL on July 02, 2011 4:59 PM:
We are now three days into Schumer's remarks accusing the GOP of purposeful sabotage of the nation's economy in order to wound Obama. Still not a word of push back from the GOP.
As Benen has pointed out elsewhere, this is NOT conversation the GOP wants to have, now or ever. So they're silent. Good message discipline, I'd say. Be nice if every single Dem in congress was saying what Schumer said, but they're mostly cowards sucking on the corporate teat, so they won't say squat.
JS on July 02, 2011 5:27 PM:
Let's not go overboard here trying to invent a case for Obama = Reagan.
It's true that Obama has co-opted conservative ideas for his legislative agenda, but he's used them to advance liberal policies. Reagan wouldn't have tried to extend health coverage to nearly universal care. The conservatives favored the individual mandate and vouchers as a way to remove entitlement spending and toss even more people into the profit-seeking private insurance market. Obama has used the idea to convince Blue Dog Democrats to go along with making health care a right, not a privilege.
(And spoiler alert: Between the inefficiency of the private insurers and the cost savings imposed by the medical practices bureau, the ACA ends with universal medicare. It's almost impossible for there to be any other result. Might take another 20 years, but the economics of medical inflation suggest it's near inevitable.)
I also don't see where Reagan would have saved the auto industry (certainly not favoring unions as Obama did), do anything about financial reform, used the EPA to reduce emissions, nominate anyone like Kagan or Sotomayor, or have been any sort of help on LGBT issues.
(Nuclear arms control and stimulating the economy, I think they would have had common ground.)
UncommonSense on July 02, 2011 7:17 PM:
It might not bother Republicans that Obama is so in line with Reagan, but it sure bugs the heck out of me.
Ron Byers on July 02, 2011 7:58 PM:
As the drop dead date approaches I predict more and more "liberal" pundits are going to discover that their false equivalence crap is just that. Pressure is going to build on the Republicans. Their dream of destroying the economy so they can rule over the corpse is going to go a glimmering.
Do I think the pundit class is going to come to Jesus? No. The pundit class works exclusively for big business and they are the ones who are going to be hurt worst if the economy melts down.
We are going to hear a lot more about Ronald Reagan as the date draws near. Mitch McConnell and John Boenher took a suicide bomber hostage. McConnell and Boehner's sponsors will not be pleased if the bomb goes off.
Obama is playing this beautifully.
Doug N on July 02, 2011 8:34 PM:
As I suspected, Obama is a Republican. Very sad.
neil b on July 02, 2011 8:43 PM:
Sure. One of the reasons the whole Republican charade must fail (I mean, as a legitimate idea - NTBCW whether it must fail as a faith tenant of the non reality community) is that we can't pay bills *and* pay down debt without raising taxes. Over and over, Rs keep pretending that "spending" is the only thing we need to trade off against taxes, yet at the same time complaining about debt.
pluege on July 02, 2011 9:18 PM:
jjm on July 02, 2011 1:37 PM:
The Republicans are becoming increasingly ridiculous and irrelevant.
???? republicans are hardly irrelevant - they're screwing the country to death.
John B. on July 02, 2011 9:26 PM:
I am old enough to have lived through the Reagan years as a politically aware early-forties adult. Contemporary assumptions about how it must have been are fundamentally faulty.
Reagan was in his time the modern-day equivalent of Bachman or Palin. His ignorance was legendary, his rhetoric every bit as radical rightist as "skeptonomist" (above) suggests. But his personal style of dealing with Congress and 'leading' his own administration was essentially passive and largely disconnected. His Alzheimer's no doubt was at work long before the end of his second term, and those closest to him knew it.
The people who in Reagan name wielded his presidential powers -- Howard Baker, Donald Regan, Ken Duberstein, James Baker, etc. etc. -- to be sure were right-wing schmucks. But they were much more pragmatic than the right-wingers of today. They tolerated -- even gladly used used Reagan's rhetoric -- as a tactic for dealing with Congress. They reached compromises, to be sure, that were bad for the nation, but much less so than otherwise would have been the case. To the extent the numbers show Reagan failed to achieve the goals suggested by his own rhetoric, we and the nation as a whole have them to thank.
As several have pointed out, however, the Reagan comparison is largely irrelevant now. Reagan has been elevated to a phony sainthood by those who don't really know a thing about him or what his administration did and didn't do. And they don't care. For them his very name is a symbol, and it's that manufactured symbolism they cleave to, not the man and certainly not the actual history of his administration.
At best, comparisons of Reagan and Obama only underscore how far right the country has drifted the extreme degree to which Obama falls embarrassingly short of being liberal in any real sense of that word.
Arthur Kerschen on July 02, 2011 10:35 PM:
The Free Market Principle of Equal Justice Under Law suggests that special tax credits be repealed. Government cannot be in the business of subsidizing market activities that would otherwise be unprofitable, while taxing profitable industries at the full rate.
http://www.freemarketprinciples.com
Repeal of tax credits to industry might not even be seen as a tax increase. It could be called a spending cut. If it makes the democrats in congress feel better to call it a tax increase, we should be happy to accommodate.
With all due respect, selective tax cuts for the politically favored is worse than no tax cuts for anyone.
You win democrats, we will eliminate all subsidies to unprofitable industries and call it a tax increase.
Aden on July 02, 2011 11:28 PM:
Yeah, that Politico is quite the source. If you lean right, and ignore the propaganda slant.
It's a source for wannabes. Because it's driving attraction is the daily emails and twitters from their social maven. People who want to get mentioned in them, find Politico positively titillating.
nk007 on July 03, 2011 3:54 AM:
Both the right wing teapublicans and the the left wing purity progressives share a devotion to mythology. For the right wingers the hero politician is Ronald Reagan, for the left wingers the hero politician is FDR. Sadly both the real Reagan and the real FDR would not be embraced today by the extreme right wingers and the extreme left wingers, respectively. Both Reagan and FDR were pragmatic politicians who knew that to get things done, It was necessary to strike compromises with the opposition. Not only did they have to compromise with opposing parties but they also had to compromise with different factions within their own parties. It's amazing how in 2011, the idea of compromise, for the good of the country, has now become a dirty word so far as the extreme wings of the two political parties are concerned.
Thankfully, the vast majority of Democrats are still sane, and are still willing to compromise to get things done. Sadly, that is no longer the case with the Republicans. The Republican party has been taken over by the extremists who would rather destroy the country than try to find a middle ground with Democrats.Taking orders from their leader, Rush Limbaugh, their #1 goal is making sure that President Obama fails. And if that means taking the entire country down, so be it. What is interesting is that the people driving the extreme GOP agenda, like Rush Limbaugh and the Koch Brothers, are less likely to suffer any economic hardship in the event the the country is driven into a severe depression.
HMDK on July 03, 2011 8:18 AM:
"Or more to the point, doesn�t it bother Republicans, just a little, that Barack Obama is more in line with the Reagan legacy than they are?"
Why should it?
Appearently it doesn't bother a lot of democrats.
You can't have it both ways.
Either this post is true and Obama is pretty far to the right or it's wrong and democrats who think Obama is too far to the right are wrong.
Toon Moene on July 03, 2011 9:11 AM:
Ah, the Republican party.
Herewith, I submit the following description of a speech, given by a Republican president, as penned down by Wikipedia.
Quick - which Republican president is this:
Other public reaction to the speech was divided along partisan lines.
The next day the Democratic-leaning Chicago Times observed,
"The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly,
flat and dishwatery utterances of the man who has to be pointed out to
intelligent foreigners as the President of the United States."
In contrast, the Republican-oriented New York Times was complimentary.[17]
The Springfield, Ma. Republican newspaper printed the entire speech,
calling it "a perfect gem" that was "deep in feeling, compact in thought
and expression, and tasteful and elegant in every word and comma."
The Republican predicted that [the President's] brief remarks would
"repay further study as the model speech".[67]
Doug on July 03, 2011 9:13 AM:
Reading comprehension, folks!
Mr. Benen wrote: "Doesn't it bother Republicans that Barack Obama is more in line with the Reagan legacy than they are?". Lots of things go into a "legacy". Style of speaking is one. Being willing to raise taxes while cutting spendingm is another. The latter, coincidentally, is the theme of Mr. Benen's article and as best as I can tell, is where Mr. Obama is trying to lead the country.
The only way out of our current problem with the deficit/debt is to increase revenues. While raising taxes is supposedly a "third rail" in politics, it's becoming apparent that "third rail" only applies to Republican primaries, as poll after poll supports increased taxation.
The taxes Mr. Reagan increased may have been regressive, but they WERE increases and they were done on a bi-partisan basis. In my opinion, THAT is what Mr. Obama is moving towards, only from a Democratic perspective; ie, tax INCREASES as the major part of balancing the budget.
At present, with the current composition of the House, the majority of any "balancing" will have to be done cutting spending, change the composition of the House and the majority of the balancing shifts to increasing revenues. However, the idea of a "balanced" approach to cutting the deficit is constantly being pushed, even in the face of Republican threats to destroy the economy.
The Democratic leadership in DC have done incredibly well considering the hand they've been dealt. Raising taxes may poll well, but such polls count for nothing with the Republicans controlling the House and that's where budgetary legislation MUST originate. The ability of ANY political position's popularity or rightness to affect legislation depends entirely on the number of votes that position can muster in the House and Senate. If the votes aren't there to support it at present, any intelligent politician will do his best to ensure that the outcome of the NEXT election is also favorable; ie, increasing Democratic Representatives and Senators who support the same position. Which is what Mr. Obama is doing.
Or, at least, trykng to do...
It's not 11-dimensional chess, it's politics...
Foggy on July 03, 2011 9:45 AM:
Please let this be the stupidest column i read all day.
bakho on July 03, 2011 10:19 AM:
It bothers me a lot that Obama buys into Reagnomics and thinks that FDR was wrong. We desperately need a return to New Deal Economic policy
Reaganomics has been a disaster.
NewDeal and its continuation with the GI BIll built the strong Middle Class.
Now the elites are dismantling the New Deal and Mr Post-Partisan is negotiating away the New Deal and the Middle Class to the Wealthy Elite Barons of the New Gilded Age. Progressive Dems that still support New Deal cannot get a message across because Mr Obama has bought Reaganomics hook line and sinker.
hby on July 03, 2011 11:17 PM:
POLITICO. Media so insecure, it has to shout its' own name.
Why would any honest person take those guys seriously?
Anonymous on July 08, 2011 9:48 AM:
Reagan created the monster that is the modern Republican party. He was the Take No Prisoners Conservative, the Speak No evil Of Another Republican, most importantly the Truth is what Helps the Cause Republican. He got the ball rolling. His glib lying about everything paved the way for the party that no longer even bothers to make sense, because it doesn't matter anyway. He made right wing talk radio possible, paving the way for Fox News.
That they wouldn't recognize him as one of them doesn't impress me at all.
I recognize him as one of them.