Remembering Ronald Reagan

I never liked Reagan—not as a candidate, not as president, not now.

Because he was "the Teflon president," the press never had the guts to criticize him—so we began to hear about all the bad things he had done only once he had left office.

When he was campaigning for the presidency, his speeches had a blatant appeal to Americans' racism. Also while a candidate, he negotiated with the Iranians—in violation of U.S. law—so that they would not release the American hostages they were holding until the campaign and election were over with. Sure enough, the hostages were released on the day of Reagan's inauguration.

Also on his Inauguration Day in 1980, he immediately halted all government funding for alternative energy research. If, 30 years later, we still don't have much in the way of alternatives to petroleum-based fuels, that's directly and simply due to Reagan.

There was an anecdote that on the eve of a big international conference, his aides provided him with a lot of briefing papers; but instead of reading them and doing his "homework," he spent the evening before the big conference watching movies.

Also, he greatly undermined environmental regulation by the EPA; and regulation of our food supplies, our medications, and so forth by the FDA. We are still suffering from inadequate governmental oversight of public health because of him.

The best thing I can sat about Reagan is that the Religious Right folks who helped elect him were sorely disappointed that he did not deliver for them everything they had hoped or wanted.

Update, August 24, 2011
A recent PBS TV program on energy showed an expert who stated that, as I indeed said here, Ronald Reagan set back US alternative energy programs by 30 years.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein