January 21, 2006
Mourning in America for Reagan's Often-Forgotten Ideas
By Edwin
J. Feulner
"It is time to check and reverse the growth of government,
which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed."
It could
be a clip from one of today's talk radio shows. After all, federal
spending has jumped 33 percent since President Bush took office.
Washington now spends nearly $22,000 per household, the most since
World War II. Government is doing so much "for" us,
it's difficult to keep track of everything it's doing "to"
us.
But the quote
above actually comes from Ronald Reagan's first Inaugural Address
on Jan. 20, 1981. Reading that speech again 25 years later --
an exercise that would benefit many conservative policymakers
today -- shows how far our country has come since then, and how
far we still have to go.
"It
is no coincidence that our present troubles parallel and are proportionate
to the intervention and intrusion in our lives that result from
unnecessary and excessive growth of government," Reagan told
his countrymen back then.
Those "troubles"
included high unemployment, gas lines and the Iranian hostage
crisis. His predecessor's attempts to respond to those troubles
had failed. Indeed, in his famous "malaise" speech in
1979, President Carter basically told the American people to get
used to a lower standard of living.
Reagan chose
a different route: Cut taxes to generate economic growth. Stabilize
the value of the dollar to ease inflation. Trim federal spending.
Ease regulation.
Getting government
out of the way allowed the American economy to flourish. GDP growth
averaged 3.2 percent a year during the 1980s. Unemployment dropped
and, with inflation under control, so did interest rates. Reaganomics
produced a genuine economic miracle, and we're still enjoying
its effects to this day.
Overseas,
too, Reagan launched a new era. "As we renew ourselves here
in our own land, we will be seen as having greater strength throughout
the world. We will again be the exemplar of freedom and a beacon
of hope for those who do not now have freedom," he announced.
Renewal was
especially important, since earlier that day Iran had finally
released the 52 Americans it had held hostage for 444 days. American
pride was at a low ebb. But Reagan rebuilt our military, allowing
Americans to regain our confidence and allowing the United States
to remain the beacon of democracy.
Of course,
Reagan's reforms weren't always enacted. "It is my intention
to curb the size and influence of the federal establishment and
to demand recognition of the distinction between the powers granted
to the federal government and those reserved to the states or
to the people," Reagan added in his inaugural.
Unfortunately,
this worthy goal was thwarted. As American affluence grew, we
also allowed our government to grow -- one of the reasons it now
spends so much and promises even more than it can ever afford.
Reagan was
always optimistic, though, as we should be today. "The economic
ills we suffer have come upon us over several decades," he
said. "They will not go away in days, weeks, or months but
they will go away. They will go away because we, as Americans,
have the capacity now, as we have had in the past, to do whatever
needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of
freedom."
Some of the
challenges we face today are different than the ones Reagan faced
in 1981. Today, for example, we have to solve illegal immigration
and fix unsustainable programs such as Medicare and Social Security.
Some, though, are all too familiar, such as federal overspending,
which was "mortgaging our future," Reagan said.
But we'll
solve those problems, just as we solved the problems of unemployment,
inflation and malaise in Reagan's time. Because, as he would remind
us 25 years after he took office: We're Americans. Solving problems
is what we do.
Edwin
J. Feulner, Ph.D., is President of The
Heritage Foundation.
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1995 - 2006 The Heritage Foundation
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