Reagan probably made a deal to keep U.S. hostages in Iran until after the 1980 election.If there was one issue that dominated the 1980 presidential race
between Reagan and Jimmy Carter, it was that 52 Americans were being
held hostage by Iran’s then-brand-new Islamic Republic. After holding
the hostages for 444 days, Iran finally released them on January 20,
1981 — right after Ronald Reagan finished his inauguration speech.
In the first GOP debate this year, Ted Cruz suggested that Iran let the hostages go because they were so scared of Reagan. A more likely explanation is that Reagan’s campaign, worried that Carter would get a last minute boost if he were able to free the hostages before the election, made a secret agreement with the Iranian government to keep them.
Reagan wasn’t a particularly popular president.
In the first GOP debate this year, Ted Cruz suggested that Iran let the hostages go because they were so scared of Reagan. A more likely explanation is that Reagan’s campaign, worried that Carter would get a last minute boost if he were able to free the hostages before the election, made a secret agreement with the Iranian government to keep them.
Reagan wasn’t a particularly popular president.
Of the 11 presidents since World War II, Reagan had the sixth-highest average approval rating while in office, behind Kennedy, Eisenhower, George H.W. Bush, Clinton and Johnson. That’s not to say Reagan wasn’t beloved by some Americans. According to former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev,
George H.W. Bush told him in 1987 that “Reagan is a conservative. An
extreme conservative. All the blockheads and dummies are for him.”
The economy wasn’t much better during Reagan’s presidency than during Carter’s. If Americans remember anything about politics in the ’70s and ’80s, it’s that the economy was horrible when Carter was president, but then Reagan came in and fixed everything and the economy boomed. This isn’t true at all. The U.S. economy grew at an average annual rate of 3.6 percent when Reagan was president, just a little faster than the 3.4 percent under Carter. Reagan’s presidency had a higher average unemployment rate — 7.5 percent compared to the average during Carter’s presidency of 6.5percent — with more jobs created each month. And for those who care about such things, the federal budget deficit was much lower under Carter. The one thing that was significantly better when Reagan was president is that the average rate of inflation was 4.1 percent, compared to 10.4 percent under Carter.
Reagan’s fan, Saddam Hussein.It’s well known that Reagan helped arm Iraq during the extraordinarily brutal Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, and sent Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad for a chummy meeting with Saddam Hussein.
What’s less understood is that Saddam reciprocated the affection. After the U.S. captured Saddam in 2003, he was interrogated by FBI agent George Piro. Saddam told him, in Piro’s words, that Reagan had been a “great leader” and an “honorable man” whom Saddam wished he could have met in person.
Reagan was to blame for the biggest pre-2008 bank bailout.
“This bill is the most important legislation for financial institutions in the last 50 years. … All in all, I think we hit the jackpot,” said Reagan as he signed the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982. Reagan declared that the bill, which changed the rules governing Savings & Loans, was “the first step in our administration’s comprehensive program of financial deregulation.”
By the end of Reagan’s presidency, the S&L industry lay in smoking ruins after a long campaign of looting that eventually cost taxpayers about $132 billion. This was the largest bailout of the financial industry in U.S. history until the Wall Street collapse of 2008.
Reagan didn’t meaningfully cut taxes for anyone except the top 1 percent. Reagan didn’t cut taxes on the U.S. as a whole as much as he changed them. He cut income taxes, which fall most heavily on richer taxpayers, while increasing payroll taxes, which are disproportionately paid by the middle and working class. When all the alterations to the tax code are taken into account, by the end of his presidency the poorest 20 percent of households were paying a slightly higher tax rate than when Carter was president; the middle 20 percent had gotten a minuscule tax cut; and the top 1 percent had seen their taxes fall significantly.
This was, of course, by design. As David Stockman, Reagan’s budget director, acknowledged in 1981, the promise of tax cuts for everyone “was always a Trojan horse to bring down the top rate” for the richest. “Do you realize the greed that came to the forefront?” Stockman asked about the passage of Reagan’s first tax bill. “The hogs were really feeding. The greed level, the level of opportunism, just got out of control.”
Much more
The economy wasn’t much better during Reagan’s presidency than during Carter’s. If Americans remember anything about politics in the ’70s and ’80s, it’s that the economy was horrible when Carter was president, but then Reagan came in and fixed everything and the economy boomed. This isn’t true at all. The U.S. economy grew at an average annual rate of 3.6 percent when Reagan was president, just a little faster than the 3.4 percent under Carter. Reagan’s presidency had a higher average unemployment rate — 7.5 percent compared to the average during Carter’s presidency of 6.5percent — with more jobs created each month. And for those who care about such things, the federal budget deficit was much lower under Carter. The one thing that was significantly better when Reagan was president is that the average rate of inflation was 4.1 percent, compared to 10.4 percent under Carter.
Reagan’s fan, Saddam Hussein.It’s well known that Reagan helped arm Iraq during the extraordinarily brutal Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, and sent Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad for a chummy meeting with Saddam Hussein.
What’s less understood is that Saddam reciprocated the affection. After the U.S. captured Saddam in 2003, he was interrogated by FBI agent George Piro. Saddam told him, in Piro’s words, that Reagan had been a “great leader” and an “honorable man” whom Saddam wished he could have met in person.
Reagan was to blame for the biggest pre-2008 bank bailout.
“This bill is the most important legislation for financial institutions in the last 50 years. … All in all, I think we hit the jackpot,” said Reagan as he signed the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982. Reagan declared that the bill, which changed the rules governing Savings & Loans, was “the first step in our administration’s comprehensive program of financial deregulation.”
By the end of Reagan’s presidency, the S&L industry lay in smoking ruins after a long campaign of looting that eventually cost taxpayers about $132 billion. This was the largest bailout of the financial industry in U.S. history until the Wall Street collapse of 2008.
Reagan didn’t meaningfully cut taxes for anyone except the top 1 percent. Reagan didn’t cut taxes on the U.S. as a whole as much as he changed them. He cut income taxes, which fall most heavily on richer taxpayers, while increasing payroll taxes, which are disproportionately paid by the middle and working class. When all the alterations to the tax code are taken into account, by the end of his presidency the poorest 20 percent of households were paying a slightly higher tax rate than when Carter was president; the middle 20 percent had gotten a minuscule tax cut; and the top 1 percent had seen their taxes fall significantly.
This was, of course, by design. As David Stockman, Reagan’s budget director, acknowledged in 1981, the promise of tax cuts for everyone “was always a Trojan horse to bring down the top rate” for the richest. “Do you realize the greed that came to the forefront?” Stockman asked about the passage of Reagan’s first tax bill. “The hogs were really feeding. The greed level, the level of opportunism, just got out of control.”
Much more
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