ambassador speeches

Remarks on the Legacy of Ronald Wilson Reagan

May 27, 2005

Like all great or near great American presidents, the fortieth one transformed the nation that he led.  
Ronald Wilson Reagan came from a modest mid Western background and worked his way through Eureka College in Illinois.  As a young radio sports broadcaster, he gained national media exposure during the Great Depression.  A screen test in 1937 won him a contract in Hollywood.  During the next two decades he appeared in 53 films.  As president of the Screen Actors Guild, Reagan became embroiled in disputes over the issue of communism in the film industry; his political views shifted from liberal to conservative.  He toured the United States as a television host, becoming a spokesman for conservatism.  In 1966 he was elected Governor of California by a margin of a million votes, and re-elected in 1970.

Ronald Reagan won the Republican Presidential nomination in 1980 and after winning 489 electoral votes to 47 for President Jimmy Carter, he took office on January 20, 1981.  The size of his victory was a reflection of the malaise facing the United States at that time:  rampant inflation, oil shocks, Soviet expansionism, Castro and Sandinista challenges in Latin America, and the protracted and humiliating confinement of Americans in Iran.  Thus, at the start of the Reagan presidency, America appeared to be a declining power.  Eight years later, as Reagan departed the White House, at the beginning of the momentous, revolutionary year of 1989, even his detractors would admit that he left behind a very different America.  An America full of self confidence and hope for the future, a stronger America. 

     After his two terms in office, President Reagan could look with satisfaction on the achievements of his innovative program known as the Reagan Revolution, which aimed to reinvigorate the American people and reduce their reliance upon government.  He felt he had fulfilled his campaign pledge of 1980 to restore “the great, confident roar of American progress and growth and optimism.”  Reagan also completed the transformation of the Republican party into a true conservative party, much like Eisenhower turned the previously isolationist Republicans into internationalists or Franklin Roosevelt turning the Democrats into the party of vigorous federal government.

     President Truman had created the containment policy that was practiced by all his successors.  But it was Reagan who prophetically saw that the time had come to tighten containment and finally eliminate Soviet communism.  Like Roosevelt, he shattered an evil empire whose ultimate goal was to enslave the world.

     Domestically, Reagan’s most enduring success was in tax policy.  When he took office, the top federal tax rate was an abusive 70 percent – a rate sure to discourage entrepreneurship by unfairly confiscating well over half the earnings of creative risk takers.  Reagan left office having lowered the top rate to 28 percent.  His overhaul of the income tax code eliminated many deductions and exempted millions of people with low incomes.  By making sure that the top 10 percent of income earners received a fair share of the tax relief, Reagan guaranteed that the people most likely to create jobs, invent new products, and promote economic growth could look forward to enjoying the fruits of their labor rather than being discouraged by the prospect of envy-based confiscation.  At the end of his administration the U.S. enjoyed its longest recorded period of peacetime prosperity without recession or depression.  Reagan’s economic vision and the success of his policies moved the entire American political and economic paradigm many large steps in the free-market direction.  Even the Democratic Party, post Reagan, celebrates the free market.

     This is not to say that Reagan did not suffer setbacks or that his administration had no failures.  His Mid East policies were largely frustrated, he is criticized for siding with anti-communist dictators such as Marcos in the Philippines, his welfare reform was confined to small, tepid steps, and while he denounced the spiraling growth of federal government, he did little to contain it.

     But, in the long run, I believe his achievements will outshine his failures.  In foreign policy, Reagan sought to achieve “peace through strength.”  During his two terms he increased defense spending 35 percent, but sought to improve relations with the Soviet Union.  In dramatic meetings with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, he negotiated a treaty that would eliminate intermediate-range nuclear missiles.  Reagan was the first to declare war against international terrorism when he sent American bombers against Libya after evidence came out that Libya was involved in an attack on American soldiers in West Berlin.  By ordering naval escorts in the Persian Gulf, he maintained the free flow of oil during the Iran-Iraq war.  In keeping with the Reagan Doctrine, he gave support to anti-communist insurgencies in Central America, Asia, and Africa that turned the tide on Moscow’s proxy wars.

     Overall, the Reagan years saw a restoration of prosperity, and the goal of peace through strength was achieved around the world.  Today, America is the world’s only superpower.  And this power has three supports, all of which are more to the credit of Ronald Reagan than any other man of the 20th century:  a vibrant, free economy, which was unshackled by Reagan’s tax cuts; the elimination of our only geopolitical opponent and its transformation into an international team player; and the confidence of the American people that our freedom is not just a lifestyle choice but a blessing from God meant to become a blessing for all mankind.

     To quote from one of the many moving eulogies of last June:  “The sun has set on Ronald Reagan, but it is still morning in America.  His legacy is a new dawn on American freedom and might that continues to shine the light of liberty all over the world.