Did President Reagan decrease or increase the size of the federal government?

Increased. source
He also should have been impeached for his involvement in the Iran/Contra weapons to terrorists to support an illegal war scandal.
Reagan a great president? Just say NO!

He did both. He reduced spending on domestic issues such as cuts in federal education programs, food stamp programs, and workplace programs, and reduced taxes, but he increased military spending even though he in essence ended the Cold War.

The decrease in taxes and increase in military spending resulted in the biggest budget deficits in the country’s history to that time. That says to me that he was not a great President. However, he was a great leader due to his charisma and ability to come up with witty comments under pressure.

Do you really want to open this can of worms? Did Reagan decrease or increase the size of the federal government? No, not by himself. Did the size of the federal government increase over the span of the Reagan administration? I expect the answer to this is yes. If we just look at this as money (as many who want to “shrink” the size of government do) then it clearly increased. Total federal outlays in the last year of the Carter administration were 590.9 billion dollars. In the last year of the Reagan administration they were 1.06 trillion dollars. Was he a good president? Compared to who? Nixon? Yes. Clinton? Slightly worse. Bush I? Probably a little better. Bush II? Yes. Teddy Roosevelt? A resounding no.

@Darwin That’s not a great President, that’s a great TV show host, which he was.

As I said, he was a great leader but not a great president.

@Darwin I know, but I don’t think he was a great leader either. Great leadership is not telling people what they want to hear and winning their approval. It is telling them the hard truths and getting them to do things they don’t really want to and still winning their approval

He was a crypto-racist who deliberately appealed to the worst sentiments of the unrepentant white South in order to win his elections. He was a homophobe who stalled on intervening in the AIDS crisis until his friend Rock Hudson died. He was a belligerent, and invaded Grenada unnecessarily. He changed the redistribution of wealth in this country from the classic model of moving money from the wealthy to the middle class, and instead used the tax code to move money from the poor, working and middle classes to the wealthy; we have not yet recovered from this disaster. He was a liar, who took his cues over Iran-Contra from George Bush, who had used funds from the illegal sales of heroin during the Vietnam war to covertly fund Montagnard fighters (Hmong) only to abandon them to the tender mercies of the Pathet-Lao after we lost the war.

All-in-all a lovely legacy. No wonder we name airports after that senile piece of shit motherfucker.

I guess we know where @pdworkin stands on this issue! Don’t hold back! Say what you really mean!~

Was anything I said untrue?

@pdworkin. I doubt it but let me consult with Nancy first, just to be sure. I heard she and Ronald were pretty tight.

@filmfann

Your source is just left of Lennon. The conclusions do not follow the numbers.

@DrBill the conclusions of the site aside, are you saying the numbers they cite are wrong?

@filmfann

I’m saying, they have such a slanted view, their conclusions cannot be trusted.

@DrBill – Lennon? As in John? Yoko? Or Sean?

Vladimir Lenin

@pdworkin If I asked you to start citing sources, would any of what you typed stand up to close examination?
Reagan was a racist, eh? Just like Rep. Joe Wilson?
What proof is there that Reagan was a ‘crypto-racist’?
And explain the Iran-contra
‘Unnecessarily invaded Grenada’? And I suppose you would have just let those people at St. George’s University try their luck with the ‘gentle ways’ of the rebellion forces?
@pdworkin cite your sources!

@DrBill – Ah, so it is the Russian branch of the family.

@w2pow2 I’m comfortable with what I said, and I have no wish to be your amanuensis. If you want the people reading this to know that I was wrong, prove to them and to me that I was wrong. I’ll be content to have been wrong.

@pdworkin So you can just say whatever you want and I have to prove that you’re wrong? Boy you can keep my busy for a long time can’t you?
It is a fact that watermelons are blue on the inside until you cut the skin. Prove I’m wrong.
I have claimed many times before that I post questions so that I can learn. And when I see someone make bold accusations like that at a former president, it is almost instinctual (As very well it should be) for me to encourage the accuser to provide facts or sources.
And so I ask you, please stop giving wimpy excuses for why you won’t site sources and show some backbone.
It just really angers me when someone makes outrageous accusations and then refuses to show some facts.

I’m sorry, but I just don’t want to play. I tried to say so in a reasonable way, which just provoked more vitriol from you, so you may as well know that I do not intend to respond at all to anything else you may have to say on this subject. Now you may go ahead and knock yourself out. Perhaps you would like to try calling me some names, or insulting my mom.

@w2pow2 Let me address your question about Iran/Contra.
There were a few hostages left in Iran. Those holding the hostages wanted weapons in exchange for the hostages.
There was a civil war in Nicaragua. Reagan was supporting the insurgents (Contras). Congress passed a law forbidding any United States aid to the Contras.
Reagan’s team, headed by Ollie North, came up with a plan to sell Iran old weapons, then use the money to support weapons and food drops to the Contras, in violation of US law.
When the first hostage was released, the reporters began digging into what deal was made. Reagan begged the press not to look into it, but just let it go. They didn’t. They uncovered the facts that we were giving weapons to terrorists, then giving support to the insurgents we were not allowed to help.
The whitewash that followed was epic. They should have all hung by their thumbs.

And to be perfectly clear about Iran/Conta, we did a bit more than just support the Contras. We pretty much created them. The Contras were also terrorists who kidnapped, tortured, and murdered innocent people. So, Reagan sold weapons to Iran (not the Shah’s Iran, the same Iran that was our antagonist then and now) to negotiate for the release of hostages (so much for the whole “we don’t negotiate with terrorists” concept) and used the money to illegally fund a terrorist force in a foreign country. Then he scapegoated Oliver North and claimed that he didn’t recall what happened. So either he was a lying criminal, or he was governing the nation with symptomatic Alzheimer’s disease. Either way, not exactly the model of a “good” president.

Good answers, but can you guys site some sources?

Why did Reagan want to fund the Contras?

@w2pow2 To go back to your comment on blue watermelons. One need not cite sources that watermelons are red, but must cite sources for a claim that they are blue because red watermelons are common knowledge, while blue ones are unknown. For sources on Iran Contra I suggest turning to the archives of any newspaper. You could also check the congressional record. Reagan wanted to fund the Contras because he believed that any hint of communism anywhere in the world was a threat to democracy. He was perfectly willing to fund an organization that kidnapped, raped, murdered, and tortured innocent people as long as they were fighting “Communists”. Reagan, like every U.S. president since Eisenhower, operated under the doctrine that a brutally repressive military dictatorship was better than a brutally repressive military oligarchy in the guise of communism, and was therefore worthy of support. But he took it a step further than most in helping to create and fund the Contra terrorists in direct conflict with the law.

Walsh,LE Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-up (1997). New York: Norton Books

Shilts, R And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, 20th-Anniversary Edition (1987) (c) Randy Shilts, New York: Saint Martin’s Press

@pdworkin Now was that so hard my friend?
@gussnarp What law did Reagan break?

It was easy and unnecessary.

@w2pow2 – Reagan sold weapons to Iran then used the money to support the Contras in Nicaragua: a policy which was banned by Congress in the form of the Boland amendment which barred “direct or indirect” U.S. aid to the Contras.

Specifically, the Boland Amendment originally forbade any expenditures “for the purpose of overthrowing the government of Nicaragua.” Then it placed a $24 million limit on aid to “military or paramilitary operations in Nicaragua.” The most restrictive version, in effect from October 1984 to December 1985, stated that “no funds available” to the CIA, the Defense Department or any “entity of the U.S. involved in intelligence activities” could be used “directly or indirectly” to support the Contras.

Reagan knew about the Boland Amendment because he signed it into law.

One can also argue that by ignoring the Boland Amendment, the individual overt acts were committed in pursuit of a larger scheme to evade the will of Congress. Engaging in such a conspiracy would be a felony punishable by five years in prison.

In addition, in a March 1985 memo to Robert McFarlane, then National Security Adviser, Oliver North described proposed deliveries of $8 million worth of weapons and ammunition to a Central American country, known to be Guatemala. He enclosed “end-user certificates” attesting that the weapons would be used in that country. Actually, the memo made clear, “all shipments will be . . . turned over to” the contras. This plan seems to violate the Arms Export Control Act.

Article I of the Constitution obliges the President to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” At the very least, that would seem to have required Reagan to launch a careful study of what was forbidden by Congress under the Boland amendment and to insist that his aides abide by the results.

OK, Reagan reduced domestic spending and increased military spending and won the cold war and an expensive arms race was no more saving America billions. Was it worth it? Hell yes. Was he perfect? No, but what a champion of America and our way of life he was. He warned us to be vigilant about our freedom, that it could disappear quickly. He agreed with Thomas Jefferson who said, “The government that governs least, governs best”. Most people agree that he was the greatest president of the 20th century.

@Glenndog Welcome to fluther. Lurve.
You are, however, wrong about a lot of stuff there.
Reagan grew our government. It got bigger, more expensive, and less attentive to the people.
He let his people engineer drug sales to pay for private wars. He let his people engineer weapon sales to our enemies to pay for aid to the Contras, even though it was against the law to do so. He didn’t destroy the Soviet Union, but he did take credit for it. Gobachev caused it to implode. Reagan should have been impeached, and there was a lot of talk about it at the time. Not for getting a blow-job either. For breaking his constitutionally mandated duties. His wife and her Astrologer used their influence successfully on him, in ways that can only be called bizarre.
The greatest president of the 20th century? He was probably running close to worst, and with Nixon in the lead he had to do a lot of wrong to come so close. (FDR saw us thru the Great Depression and WWII, so I would give best pres cred to him)
In todays political theater, Sarah Palin comes closest to Reagan. It is the victory of style and spunk over substance and common sense that makes them both seem so attractive, yet so dangerous. Most people dismiss Sarah’s chances, because she is so loopy. I worry about it, because I have seen that ilk rise to power before, with Bonzo’s co-star.

@filmfann, GA! Like I’ve stated before we have far too many people in this country whom want to canonize Reagan. It still scares me how many US citizens think that the man could do no wrong. I think that some of the hero worship is due to his having died, but allowing someone like him to be the litmus test for future worthiness to become President is alarming. I was born while Nixon was ending his presidency. The ONLY President that I feel was worth it while I’ve been alive is Clinton (jury is still out on Obama whom is making far too many concessions to the right wing.) That is alarming! We’ve had 7 men be president in that period.