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Republican.
Accomplishments:
1. The world court unanimously denounced and condemned the U.S. for international terrorism in Nicaragua. A case of terrorism that was even more extreme than the events of 9/11. The Reagan-US war against Nicaragua left tens of thousands of people dead, the country ruined, perhaps beyond recovery.
2. National debts/Prolonged the collapse of the Soviet Union:
Carter: 700-800 Billion (TOTAL NATIONAL DEBT SINCE THE FOUNDING OF THE COUNTRY!)
Reagan: 3 Trillion, actual figure is 2.5 trillion but this doesn't include the deregulation of the banking industry that cost the country under vice president George Bush (Bush senior) in terms of Savings and Loan failures, etc. because of the corruption and greed that ensued by removing the regulations from the industry that prevented this sort of thing from happening. The U.S. government had to pay out the 700-800 billion dollars to cover the account holders, etc. under FDIC as well as have FDIC take over the banks themselves and take them through bankrutcy and sell them to new investors. So the total under Republican President Reagan was really around 3.3 trillion dollars.)
You would be correct to assume that national security is a major part of that debt. But let's look at national security and the Russians when they were communists. First, the anti-communist religion of the US states that Communism is NOT a viable system and would collapse on its own. Unfortunately, the Repbulicans were so afraid that communism might actually work, they had to perform aggressive intervention to make sure that it failed. The republicans like to claim that the massive and irrational military buildup of the Reagan administration was THE reason that communism collapsed in the Soviet Union. Very laughable actually as the situation was actually the opposite of this. By forcing the communists to build military hardware, it actually promoted a war time economy and gave them something to do and focus the attention of the population on rather than letting them see their own problems. In peace time, their economy had nothing to make and no means for it to work. It is very likely that the Soviet Union would have collapsed sooner had Reagan built nothing as the Soviets had no peace time economy at all and that is the very thing that ultimately made them fall apart (lack of a functional peace time economy). The system simply did not work. So Reagan spent HUGE amounts of money and in effect actually somewhat prolonged an inevitable end to Soviet-communism by doing so. And I have heard this from some well known U.S. economists in talks they gave in the past. They said, at best, the military buildup didn't affect the rate at which the Soviet System collapsed but conceded that in all likelihood, it actually prolonged it by a number of years. So there is a case of HUGE amount of money that bought practically nothing. That means the money was completely wasted and had it been reinvested in the civilian economy, it would have taken off at an incredible rate. But I guess you are one of those republicans that actually believes that communism is a functional system and therefore WE had to destroy it!
It should be noted that in Gulf War I, Bush I authorized the use of many of the weapons built up by the Reagan administration to be used in order to "get rid of them." They had already become obsolete and many were aging and slated for destruction (another cost the government would have had borne as well associated with the buildup). So it didn't really buy anything of lasting value. Soviet-Communism would have collapsed anyway and the U.S. was never actually particularly threatended by them inspite of all the propoganda and hype. The other interesting thing to note is that the Russians and the Americans have never fought a war against each other but have fought on the same side through two world wars which shows what really happens when push comes to shove. It should also be noted that even Stalin did not originally consider the Americans the enemy as we had been allies. He was outraged when he found out that it was the Americans that were spying on him and consequently retaliated and return the favor in kind--so began the cold war. It was always used to justify the bloated war time economy of the industrial military complex well beyond what was actually necessary. I was wondering who they'd come up with after the fall of the Soviets to continue to justify their existence. Bush I talked about a "war on terror" and now it surfaces with his son. Wow! What a perfect enemy to cause the ultimate fear. A war that can never end and can't strike anywhere!
Spending on military is a "COST" in terms of the economy. It is a type of spending, while a necessary evil, is not an investment. And the only "peace dividend" that exists is when things are peaceful in the world to the point you can cut back on spending on the military. Military spending drags the economy down and that is basic economics 101 stuff--it is a known and established fact. Spending on the civilian side of the economy is what makes it grow. Military spending shrinks the economy and therefore is recessionary in nature. Every economist knows that some military spending as A PERCENT OF GNP is possible without a noticeably harmful effect as long as it is fairly light with respect to the economy as a whole. So the percentage of the GNP that can be spent on military is a fairly well understood amount. In terms of actual dollars this translates into depends on the GNP so a bigger economy can spend more actual dollars on military than a smaller economy can even though they are spending the same percentage of their respective GNPs. But unfortunately, the republicans like to overspend on the military to supposedly make the country strong. This is a self defeating proposition because as you shrink the economy by overspending on military then each year as the GNP actually shrinks, the military expenditures continue to become a bigger percentage of GNP compounding the problems and setting up a viscious cycle. As far as how much can be spent on military is determined by a curve to this equation and it is not linear at all. So as military spending goes up, the drain on the economy goes up even faster and the tendency for recession and shrinkage of the entire GNP increase along with the rate of drain on the economy by the military. The drain also has a "cascading effect" forward on future years and it is therefore quite damaging economically to a country to overspend. If military spending is kept in line with the GNP at a low to moderate level, then it will only slow down the growth in the economy but not shrink it. In any case, any spending on military has some negative impact on growth but if the percentage is small enough, then it will not be terribly noticeable except over the long haul.
Therefore, any spending on military in excess of what is necessary is wasteful and not an investment and is actually detrimental in real terms. It should be noted that not one of the weapons built were actually used to bring down the Russian economy. Not one of them built was needed to defend the U.S. against an aggressor either. What war did we fight after Vietnam to contain communism? And the fact that we lost the war in Vietnam, how did that affect anything in the long run anyway? In fact, ultimately, most of the weapons that were built under Reagan had to be destroyed as they became aged and obsolete by the U.S.--another cost tied in with military spending--not to mention the cost in security and for storage in the meantime while the are not generating any economic activity. Unfortunately, the world being what it is, some is necessary but when you spend to the point of recession as occurred for many years under Reagan and was repeated under Bush I and Bush II, then you are cutting your own nose off despite your face.
And if you read David Stockman's book, you would find that David Stockman proclaimed the entire "trickle down" theory of economics a total failure. He stated that they all knew it would not work at the time but what the real goal they had in mind was to make a huge tax cut that would cause a HUGE deficit backed up with HUGE military spending to worsen the situation. This was admittedly deliberate. He said it had nothing to do with making the economy better but would force the issue of cutting the "hated social programs" and they even supplied the line item cuts to Reagan. Surprisingly, Reagan would not make them. This resulted in an incredible deficit and Stockman admitted that where they went wrong was that they had no idea that Reagan would sign off on such a level of fiscal irresponsibility. But this fiscal irresponsibility continued throughout the Reagan years. Oh, and by Stockman's own admission, he said they lured Reagan into the idea of "trickle down" economics because they knew he wasn't very bright and that he would buy into it if they could convince him that it would make the economy get better. So they did but it was for the sole purpose of creating a huge deficit to force cuts to social programs because they gave all the money away so there would be none left. This comes directly from Reagan's budget director. It is a fact admitted to by the Republicans that caused it in the first place.
Oh, and if you think Reagan got the economy going and that is why the U.S. was able to finally balance the budget under Clinton because Reagan did it, then how do you explain the hard recession of the early 1990's under George H. W. Bush? He was president between Reagan and Clinton. And don't you find it interesting in the fact that just as the economy is starting to roll again, Bush becomes president and it goes right down into the toilet again? And "it's the economy, stupid" that got Clinton elected because the economy was terrible under Bush I. So how did Reagan do this? I would nominate Reagan for worst president ever, but then came along Bush.
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