Ronald Reagan: Socialist

By Richard K. Barry

I just never get tired of this. Bloomberg makes the point made by many, even Republicans like Jeb Bush, that Ronald Reagan would have a very hard time being elected to anything in today's GOP:

During Reagan's eight years in the White House, the federal payroll grew by more than 300,000 workers. Although he was a net tax cutter who slashed individual income-tax rates, Reagan raised taxes about a dozen times.

His rhetoric matched that of many of today's most ardent Christian conservatives, yet he proved to be a reluctant warrior on abortion and other social issues. Perhaps most tellingly, he was willing to cut deals, working closely with Democratic leaders such as House Speaker Tip O'Neill of Massachusetts to overhaul Social Security and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois to revamp the tax code.

As Bloomberg notes:

That record prompted President Barack Obama in April to invoke a predecessor's words about tax fairness, quoting a story about an executive who paid lower tax rates than his secretary and millionaires who exploited loopholes to pay no taxes while a bus driver paid his fair share.

"That wild-eyed socialist, tax-hiking class warrior was Ronald Reagan," Obama said.

Okay, it's a good joke, but it does say something about the state of conservatism in American, none of it good.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)