Ronald Reagan: Commie Sympathizer?

by Stuart Shapiro

Up is down, wrong is right, Ronald Reagan has become the object of Democratic propaganda and conservative scorn.  Steve Benen explains.

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 shouldn’t that tell the political world something about the radicalism of today’s GOP? 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?

Dems are reveling in this. Indeed, just this morning, the House Democratic Caucus dropped off a letter at the office of every Republican lawmaker on Capitol Hill. The letter was from Reagan to then-Majority Leader Howard Baker — it’s dated November 16, 1983 — and it features the then-president’s plea for Congress to raise the debt ceiling and avoid “the full consequences of default.” It includes a message from today’s Democratic leaders, urging GOP officials to “take President Reagan’s message to heart.”

I never thought I’d see the day that progressive Democrats claimed Reagan’s mantle. I never thought I’d see the day that conservative Republicans let them.

Me neither.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.