For those Republicans who continue to canonize Ronald Reagan, how convenient that they’ve cherry-picked around the first four years of the Reagan Administration.
Recall that in the process of defeating Jimmy Carter, the Gipper had famously–and rhetorically–asked Americans: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Valid zinger, deftly delivered. Reagan then inherited an unemployment rate of 7.5 per cent.
By the time President Reagan had run for re-election in 1984, that number had gotten worse, then improved and was bouncing along near where it had been in 1981. The Reagan response? “Stay the course,” which was underscored by those saccharine “Morning in America” ads. The ads that ended by asking: “Why would we ever want to return to where we were less than four short years ago?”
Not to harp on the ironic reality of “four short years ago,” but let’s not forget a neocon-lobbied, unfunded war (of choice) and ill-timed Medicare prescription benefit on top of tax cuts, massive mortgage fraud and Wall Street implosions borne of unfettered, laissez-faire-on-steroids greed. Remember the Herbert Hoover references? Remember the deregulated “takers”?
We’re “less than four short years” from that perfect storm.