(Revised 5-5-2009)

When Ronald Reagan died, the commercial media understandably went along with the Reaganites in honoring and memorializing the man following his death. That was to be expected, and it was the decent thing to do.

However, it is my duty to tell you that the Reaganites have been misleading. When Reagan's self-serving diaries were finally published and made public, they renewed their efforts to build his image, paint him as a great leader, and even whitewash his legacy. In recent elections, Republican candidates have even been invoking Reagan’s name as if it were a regal mantle. Even more recently, when Senator Arlen Specter defected from the Republican Party and said it was because it was "too far to the right," he claimed Republicans should return to "Reagan’s Big Tent," and he claimed that in the 1980s it was full of moderate, good Republicans.

I grant that Specter may mean well, but I have to be honest. That is simply not true. In fact, it’s misleading, because most Republicans have been way too far to the right for nearly three decades, which is why we’re in such a mess.

Granted, there certainly were some moderate Republicans back in the early 1980s. Mark Hatfield comes to mind, along with a few others who were nearly as ethical and honest. However, I would not call them Reaganites, because most Reaganites were not moderate.

Most of Reagan’s cabinet members were certainly not moderate. They were highly partisan right-wing ideologues. For example, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were key players in the Reagan administration throughout the 1980s. They and other like-minded ideologues were the original Reaganites who started the extreme right-wing "Neo-Conservative" movement in America, and they were able to gain power (with the help of the so-called Christian "Moral Majority" led by the likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson) by claiming they served God and Country. But they did not, and do not. The fact is that they were then, and still are, deceptive and hypocritical. They have actually served Mammon and the wealthiest few, at the expense of the vast majority of the people, at the expense of the environment, and at the expense of the infrastructure.

Furthermore, most of the Reaganites in the U.S. Congress were also extremely partisan right-wing ideologues who loved Reagan because he could appear as very charming and humble even while he was condescending and arrogant as he lorded over Democratic dissenters and critics. In fact, the Reaganites cheered loudest when Reagan used the quote from the Dirty Harry movie, saying "Make my day," sneering and daring Democrats to oppose him. That’s the kind of extreme right-wing partisan "politics" that damages and threatens true democracy (and it was almost as bad as when George W. Bush more recently accused Democrats of being "unpatriotic" for daring to disagree with him). That’s why I believe it’s time that all Americans be faced with the truth about Reagan’s real character, and his real legacy, because it’s had a devastating effect on us all.

Of course, I understand why the Reaganites want to rescue and maintain Reaganism. After all, he was the most effective spokesman for those who started the New Right (neo-conservative movement) in America. He appealed to American nationalism and pride, and he initiated the policies that increasingly enabled the wealthiest few to get more and more wealthy. He claimed that it was the right thing to do to cut human services and cut taxes for the wealthy. He claimed it was to reward the rich who "created the wealth," and to make poor people "self-reliant." He claimed it would benefit everyone. He also claimed there was no shame in the U.S. military actions in Vietnam, El Salvador, Nicaragua and elsewhere. And most Americans bought it.

Reagan was successful in selling right-wing "neo-conservative" Republican propaganda because his greatest skill was to appear charming as a television commercial pitch man. That’s what he had been prior to getting into politics (because as an actor he hadn’t had much success). That’s why Reagan was able to sell the right-wing partisan political ideology that has grown over the last 28 years and gotten us into a terrible mess.

Reagan was able to make most Americans forget that it is the people -- all the people, who work hard for a living, who pay the taxes and buy the goods and services -- who generate the wealth of the nation. He was also able to make most Americans forget that most people who need our help are deserving of it. Instead, he convinced most Americans that "lazy welfare cheats" were robbing us and eating up a lot of taxpayer money.

Many Americans believed all that and some still do, because some people are quick to label and blame scapegoats. But, they let the wool be pulled over their eyes. They bought the deceptive idea that if you enable the rich to get much richer (by exploiting consumers and natural resources, and not paying their fair share of taxes), their greater wealth will "trickle down" and benefit everyone. That’s why most of the wealth has been redistributed to those who were already very wealthy, and why 90 percent of the wealth is held and controlled by the wealthiest few. By appearing very charming while being very condescending and pejorative toward progressive Democrats, labeling them as "tax and spend liberals" and "bleeding-heart liberals," Reagan was able to start extreme right-wing trends that continued trough the 1980s and 1990s, and were then expanded by George W. Bush from 2000 to 2008.

Many Americans liked Reagan because during his presidency the spirit of U.S. superiority and nationalism thrived. With all the flag waving and sword rattling, backed up by right-wing partisan "conservative" bible thumpers (who claimed God was on their side and against progressives and liberals), many Americans were convinced that Reagan was a great president. That’s why Reaganism continued for so long.

Reaganism has made the wealthiest few very much richer and very powerful, which is why the Bush Regime expanded it. But, as I’ve more fully explained my books, "Reaganism" is actually a very deceptive, divisive right-wing partisan ideology, which unfairly serves the interests of the wealthiest few, to the detriment of the great majority and especially to the working poor and the poor, to the detriment of the environment, and to the detriment of the infrastructure, all while claiming and pretending to serve all the people in the name of God and Country.

In other words, it is designed to appeal to and successfully mislead "religious and patriotic" Americans (which is why Republicans have been so successful at claiming God and the flag for themselves during the last 28 years). And it’s also designed to establish, through political legislation, just enough human "rights and freedoms," human services and public services to keep the bare majority of people content enough to not rebel. In fact, it is even designed to provide just enough "benefits" to create the appearance that it is beneficent and good.

Now Reagan's real legacy must be exposed, for the sake of truth and justice, and for the sake of generations to come. It will help us and our children and future generations to avoid being deceived, divided, and led astray by other bad leaders who may be just as charming and deceptive. We must see demagogues for what they are, because if we recognize and realize their impact and their legacy it will help us grow and evolve into a more civilized, just, and equitable society.

Fortunately, even though Reaganism has worked very well for the Reaganites and Bushites for the last 28 years, it has recently been more exposed for what it is. That’s why they want to rescue it. They realize it is finally being threatened by the victory of Democrat Barack Obama, and they also realize that Obama was elected because most Americans realize that it was Reaganite/Bushite deregulation that enabled so much political and corporate corruption. Obama’s victory worries the Reaganites and Bushites a lot.

But they cannot save Reaganism, because it will ultimately crumble and be relegated to the pages of history, exactly where it belongs. It’s lasted so long because it was very clever and well-sold. That’s why even the horrific political corruption and corporate corruption of companies like Enron, Global Crossing, WorldCom, Adelphia and Tyco during the 1990s obviously did not expose it enough. But, perhaps with the financial crisis caused in 2008 by predatory lenders and banks, and by the financial companies like Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Washington Mutual, AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it will be exposed enough for people to fully realize how inherently deceptive and corrupt Reaganism-turned Bushism is.

It must be thoroughly exposed also because under Reagan and Bush the U.S. epitomized the symbolic "Babylon," the most powerful military-industrial empire. And history will show just how corrupt, deceptive, divisive and damaging it was.

So, for the sake of history, we must not allow a false image Ronald Reagan to stand. The stone of truth must shatter it, at least the political image. He may have been a very charming, nice guy in many respects, and he was a good friend to his friends. I think most people would agree to that. However, Reagan must be judged as a state governor and a U.S. president, and, as such, Reagan was also a misguided, mean-spirited, divisive and harmful leader, and his legacy must not be whitewashed as Reaganites want to do. The truth must be known, and acknowledged.

The Reaganites on the New Right, Neo-Conservative Movement want you to believe that Ronald Reagan’s greatest accomplishments were the following:

1) restored America to prosperity and self- confidence;

2) cut taxes for all and reduced the size of government;

3) rebuilt America's military strength; and

4) won the Cold War against the Soviet Union.

However, some of that is blatantly false, and the rest of it is, at best, only half truth.

Of course it's true that Reagan did appeal to American egotism and feelings of nationalism, with a lot of flag waving and bravado. He also increased spending on the military, continuing the increases that his democratic predecessor Jimmy Carter had already made.

However, the true record and historic facts reveal that the image right-wing conservatives are trying to paint of Reagan is mostly a false image, and most of the legacy they are trying to fabricate is merely a myth. For as a governor and president, Ronald Reagan did not serve the interests of the majority of the people. He served the interests of the wealthy few, and in fact impacted the country and the whole world in some very negative and devastating ways.

In fact, as I wrote in the book What IS the World Coming To?, Reaganism has done a lot of damage and harm in the last twenty-seven years because Ronald Reagan opened the doors wide open to the forces of self-interest, greed, inequity, racism, nationalism and militarism. His attitude and policies, many of which were more or less copied by George W. Bush, are some of the biggest reasons why we have had such bitter partisan gridlock; corporate corruption; bad relations between labor and management; huge income disparity; diminishing protection of the environment; increasing racism; growing poverty, hunger and homelessness; a shrinking middle class; and diminishing financial status for the vast majority while the rich have been getting a whole lot richer - incredibly richer. And that's just the domestic problems.

In the book I expose a lot of Ronald Reagan's failures, errors and wrongdoings, and I will quote from it here and expand on it. Why? Because Reagan must be seen for what he was: a great pretender who often acted very charming and nice, but was actually deluded with self- importance and misguided, harmful ideology. Unfortunately, he easily misled many people because as a politician he was in fact, as I said, a great television pitch man. That’s really why Republican power brokers enlisted him to run for office, and it’s why he became Governor of California and then president.

So, let's examine some of the Reaganite claims. For example, they like to claim that Reagan furthered the cause of liberty by reducing the size and scope of government. And, of course, that's what Reagan himself claimed, even though he actually did the opposite.

When Reagan left the White House in January 1989, he said in his farewell address: "There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts." He also said: "Through more and more rules and regulations and confiscatory taxes, the government was taking more of our money, more of our options, and more of our freedom."

Reagan was wrong about that, because he erroneously believed that private institutions, like corporations and conservative religious groups and other private interest groups as the real providers of our freedom, not government. That is blatantly untrue, and yet that is still the claim of those who do not like government regulation. In fact, Reagan once said: "We must remove government's smothering hand ... to reinvigorate those social and economic institutions which serve as a buffer and a bridge between the individual and the state."

That was misleading propaganda, and the "smothering hand" phrase was simply deceptive and demagogic.

As William Saletan wrote shortly after Reagan's death in the online Slate magazine, "Reagan had a narrow understanding of freedom. For too many Americans, captivity is the inability to pay bills, save money, or go to college. For too many, the local tyrant is a company or religious majority. Government can impose worse captivity or become a greater tyrant, but not with the predictability of a law of physics. Liberty doesn't necessarily contract as government expands. Sometimes, you need more government to get more liberty."

That is quite true. The fact is that we the people need and must have a level of government capable of establishing, protecting and maintaining our equality, liberty and civil rights, all of which have diminished under the Reaganites, especially the rule of Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, and all the rest of those on the New Right or Neo-Conservative Movement.

A big part of the problem is that they have been supported by organizations with deceptive names to make them seem good, like the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies; The Moral Majority; The Christian Coalition; Citizens for Excellence in Education; Concerned Women for America; Eagle Forum; Family Research Council; American Family Association; Heritage Foundation; Center for Individual Rights, etc. They are not what they claim to be, because even though they claim to serve all the people in the name of God and Country, they actually serve the interests of the wealthy few, at the expense of the environment and all the rest of us. Spiritually blinded by their own self-righteousness, greed and self-interest, they don't realize they are like the man who "shoots himself in the foot."

We need and simply must have adequate laws and adequate regulations to protect the environment and protect all of us from the selfish and greedy who would exploit us, take advantage of us, and put profit ahead of the public good and our environment.

The truth is that Reagan's so-called "anti-government" rhetoric was damaging to the country. And it was hypocritical, because Reagan did not reduce the size of government. In fact, he doubled the size of the federal bureaucracy.

Right-wing Republicans like Reagan love big government if and when it suits their purposes, and Reagan only reduced the government's ability to help people who truly need help. He cut taxes for the wealthy and produced record deficits. In fact, he tripled the national deficit and set a bad example that George W. Bush later followed, and the Bush Regime even claimed that "Reagan proved that deficit spending is good."

Reagan also gave corporations greater license and freer rein to abuse their monetary power, enabling greedy corporate executives and setting the scene for the corporate corruption and scandals of the 1990s. But in doing so he did not reduce the size of government, nor did he reduce government spending.

The truth is that the federal government spending was 25 percent higher when Reagan left office than when he took office, and the federal civilian work force increased from 2.8 million to 3 million. And that's not even including the huge increase in Defense Department civilians that Reagan brought in and hired.

By comparison, under eight years of Bill Clinton's democratic presidency (which the Reaganites falsely claimed was "in favor of Big Government"), the federal civilian work force went down, from 2.9 million to 2.68 million. Federal spending grew by only 11 percent, less than half as much as under Reagan. As a share of Gross Domestic Product, federal spending diminished from 21.5 percent to 18.3 percent under Clinton -- more than twice Reagan's reduction, ending up with a federal government share of the economy about a tenth smaller than Reagan left behind.

It's also a myth and a lie that Reagan's tax cuts led to the late 1980s and 1990s prosperity. The fact is that Reagan tripled the national debt. Because of Reagan’s recession, the unemployment rate rose to 9.7 percent in 1982, two years into Reagan’s first term, and in 1983 it was still 9.6 percent.

Furthermore, the most dramatic tax rate reductions came in the bipartisan tax reform of 1986, led by Democratic Sen. Bill Bradley and Democratic Rep. Dick Gephardt. And that was in response to public outrage resulting from the realization that Reagan's earlier tax cuts had left many wealthy individuals and profitable corporations paying no taxes at all!

You see, then, as now, Republican tax cuts are deliberately unfair and inequitable, benefitting mainly their very wealthy rich supporters, corporate supporters and the corporate establishment, and the whole Religious-Military-Industrial Complex. (See the page on Little Known American History to see how the Military-Industrial Complex, which President Eisenhower warned us about when he left office in 1961, became the Religious-Military-Industrial Complex increasingly from 1980 to the present.)

The truth is that Republican tax cuts are, by intent and consequence, a payoff to the wealthiest one percent of the population who provide 80 percent of the funding for political campaigns.

By contrast, Democratic tax cuts are fair and egalitarian, benefitting all income groups and especially those who can least afford to pay taxes.

Now, another myth is that Reagan won the Cold War. Reaganites erroneously claim that Reagan's "Star Wars" Initiative, his tough rhetoric in his speeches criticizing Russia, and his costly defense buildup in particular were all part of a successful strategy to defeat communism and win the Cold War.

Actually, in Reagan's Star Wars address of 1983, in which he first proposed to build a defense against incoming nuclear missiles, he stated it would "introduce greater stability" in the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. Furthermore, he made a great show of becoming friends with the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev.

Ronald Reagan does indeed deserve some credit for his second-term, politically expedient conversion to detente and disarmament, and it could even be said that he deserves a small bit of the credit for the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. But we should face the real truth about that.

As I mentioned, the U.S. military buildup really started under Reagan's predecessor, the very good democratic President Jimmy Carter. And it was not Reagan's rhetoric or the military buildup that brought down the Soviet Union. It was actually the result of the failures and consequences of the Soviet political- economic system that brought about its gradual and inevitable decline. Moreover, it was the result of the reforms of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It really wouldn't have mattered what Reagan did. The Soviet Union still would have fallen. In fact, as early as the mid-1970s before Reagan became president, the Soviet system was already beginning to collapse.

Yet another myth is that Reagan restored traditional family values. That was just because of Reagan's rhetoric, which created a false front. In fact, Reagan's policies were damaging to most families. According to the Index of Leading Cultural Indicators, the 1980s saw significant rises in child poverty, teen-suicide, births to unmarried teenagers, single-parent families and illegitimate births, while marriage rates and the percentage of children living with both biological parents went down.

Reaganite budget cuts to benefit the wealthy certainly contributed to some of that economic decline, and especially to child poverty. Under Reagan the programs that got hit the hardest were those for the poor, and especially for the working poor.

As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported in 1984, "Low-income programs were reduced more than twice as deeply (in proportionate terms) as social programs not concentrated on the poor. Overall, the low-income programs bore nearly one-third of all cuts made anywhere in the federal government even though they constitute less than one-tenth of the budget. No other part of the federal budget was cut so deeply."

The Urban Institute also noted: "Because of the president's emphasis on self- sufficiency and productivity, the administration might have been expected to give some emphasis to human resource programs (education and training, public service employment, nutrition programs, Medicaid and social services) as a means of addressing poverty and welfare dependency. Instead, these were the very programs in which the administration generally proposed the deepest cuts."

Reagan's policies and views were particularly unpopular with African Americans, who severely criticized Reagan for opposing racial quotas and for seeking to obtain a tax credit for Bob Jones University, a segregated white racist southern school. Besides that, Reagan began his 1980 general election campaign by promoting "states rights" (a term that was at that time a code word referring to racial segregation). He was appealing to Southern White Racists.

"For many Americans, this was a time best forgotten," said Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP and a longtime civil rights activist. "He was a polarizing figure in black America. He was hostile to the generally accepted remedies for discrimination. His appointments were of people as equally hostile. I can't think of any Reagan policy that African Americans would embrace."

Early in his first term, Reagan ordered some of his toughest budget cuts in Medicaid, food stamps, aid to families with dependent children, and other programs that were badly needed by large numbers of lower-income families, Black and White.

After all, in recent years, of the 20 percent of American children who live in poverty, 62 percent were White; 32 percent were Black; and 29 percent were Hispanic. What's more, nearly 90 percent of all children in poverty lived in mixed income cities and suburbs, not in urban ghettos.

Unfortunately, Reagan's policies revealed that he was either ignorant of the facts, or didn't care. Indeed, until public protest forced Reagan to back away a bit from his drastic cuts in human services, things had gotten so bad that his Agriculture Department sought to cut the school lunch program and, to suit their purposes, even redefined ketchup and relish as vegetables to try to claim that kids were getting proper nutrition.

To make matters worse for workers and families, Reagan also put an end to the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, which threw 400,000 people into unemployment lines. He cut Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), putting another 500,000 people out looking for jobs. He reduced spending for Housing and Urban Development, which drastically reduced affordable housing and triggered the increases in poverty, hunger and homelessness that have continued to the present day.

The reality is that Ronald Reagan caused and ignored a lot of human suffering. But one of the worst things he did was wage war on the labor force, and particularly on labor unions. This began when Reagan fired and replaced 13,000 air traffic controllers in 1981 after they staged a work stoppage to bring attention to their plight. He abused his power to simply break their union.

Reagan simply avoided bargaining or negotiations, and paid no mind to fair play. He then demonized all other labor unions and labeled strikers as 'greedy, lazy, uncaring and unpatriotic.' This sent a clear signal to the business world and the labor force. In fact, it was more than a signal. It was an opening salvo that started an open war on labor unions. It opened the floodgates to negative attitudes and unfair treatment of employees and workers everywhere, and it started a trend that has continued to this day.

By 1982, just one year into Reagan's recession, 44 percent of all union contracts included either wage freezes or wage give-backs, while in the prior years between 1964 and 1980 before Reagan came to power there had been no wage freezes or give-backs. Even worse, the Reagan strategy was just the beginning of an anti-worker, anti-labor trend that has continued to this day, and it has had an extremely devastating effect on the middle class and the working poor throughout the eighties, nineties and beyond to the present (which was then 2004). And that has continued under the Bush regime.

Reagan also manipulated the membership of the National Labor Relations Board, the organization that mediates labor disputes. He made sure it was dominated by conservatives who consistently ruled in favor of business and against workers and union organizers. He did the same thing wherever possible on the courts by appointing extremely conservative right-wing judges.

The consequences of Reagan's war on workers have been devastating. Twenty years later, the percentage of union members working in private sector businesses dropped below ten percent. That was the lowest percentage in sixty years and the lowest in the western world. That's an indicator of how successful Reagan's war on labor unions has been, and it is why so many formerly middle class workers now do not earn enough to support their families and have fallen into the working poor population. It is why they have to pay more in health insurance premiums and more in payroll deductions. It's why they have to either endure shrinking health and retirement benefits or go entirely without. And it's why workers have to do more work with less resources.

There are many reasons why Reagan damaged this country and caused suffering and hardship. But ironically, many people still regard the infamous "Iran-contra" scandal as Reagan's most serious offense, so I should say something about that. Briefly, that was about the Reagan administration's secret sale of arms to Iran in 1984 -- which the United States considered a supporter of terrorism -- to raise cash for right-wing Nicaraguan contra rebels, despite a congressional ban on support for the Latin American insurgency.

However, while that was blatantly illegal (not to mention foolish) and should have gotten Reagan impeached, to me it is not as bad as most of the other things he did. In my view, his actions against the workers of this country and against the poor and the working poor were the worst. And his policies, like Bush’s, were grossly hypocritical, because while they claimed and boasted that they were Christians, they certainly did not treat the least of our brethren as they would treat the Lord, as the Christ Jesus said we should do.

Furthermore, Reagan’s negative impact on environmental protections, worker protections, and consumer protections were almost as bad. But all these things have been ignored in the effort to paint Reagan as a hero and great leader.

Yet another myth about Reagan is that he was always amiable and liked everyone. In fact, Reagan possessed an ugly mean streak, and his political career really fits the definition of a demagogue who stirs up the emotions and appeals to the pride, prejudice and hate of a lot of people to serve his own partisan political interests. He appealed to the worst in certain people who cheered for him, not only when he beat his chest, thumped his bible, waved the flag and rattled his sword, but also when he acted like an intolerant and violent despot.

How can I say that? Well, that is exactly the way he acted in the early 1960s as a newly elected governor of California in his intolerant and brutally violent reaction to the student Free Speech Movement in Berkeley at the University of California. In fact, he warned student protesters, "If there has to be a bloodbath, then let's get it over with." And sure enough, Reagan created a bloodbath.

That is very significant, because in doing that, Ronald Reagan helped set the tone for the violent right-wing reactionary confrontations that swept across America in the 1960s - first in reaction to the Free Speech Movement, and then in reaction to the civil rights and anti-war demonstrations and marches all across the country. All that conflict and violence caused a tremendous amount of grief, despair and suffering, and when it peaked during the brutal police riots against anti-war demonstrators in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, it left the country deeply divided and terribly polarized.

As Governor of California, Reagan also started the trend of turning mental patients in state institutions out on the street. Consequently, in most states government policy now dictates that no matter how mentally ill patients are, as long as they can somehow be deemed 'no harm to themselves or to society' they can no longer be cared for in a public hospital or state institution. That's because Reaganite Republicans have claimed we can't afford to care for them. That's why we see so many mentally ill people on the street, homeless. That's also why we have seen the increasing criminalization of the mentally ill, because many communities find that throwing them in jail is the easiest way to get them off the street.

Reagan's mean streak is also evident in the "anti-crime" initiatives he pushed as president. Reagan's ideological world view that the "war on crime is a struggle between good and evil" raised the stakes in a culture, peculiarly American, of politicizing criminal law issues. The result was unforgiving legislation known as the Comprehensive Crime Control Act, which ushered in both procedural and substantive laws that are terribly unfair and continue to haunt the administration of federal criminal justice. It severely restricts the discretion of judges, and results in terribly unfair prescribed minimum sentences.

But perhaps the most damaging thing Reagan did, at least in terms of how it impacted America, is initiatives that favored the wealthiest few, big business and large corporations, at our expense. As an advocate of "deregulation," business-friendly policy and legislation, and tax cuts for the wealthy, Reagan started a trend that has had a devastating effect during the last 28 years, because it increasingly granted wider corporate license and free rein, and it enabled and unleashed corporate greed. Reaganism has enabled and resulted in huge abuses of corporate power and terrible shirking of corporate responsibility, and this has consequently affected our lives in innumerable negative and devastating ways due to the resulting corporate greed and corruption. The corporate scandals like Enron, Global Crossing, WorldCom, Adelphia and Tyco, which were just some of the more well known cases of corporate corruption, were in large part the result of Reaganism. But its full effect was far more wide-reaching and insidious. The financial crisis caused in 2008 by predatory lenders and banks, and Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Washington Mutual, AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exposed further problems caused by Reaganism-turned Bushism.

Reagan also fueled the "corporate welfare gravy train" to go along with the business friendly laws and policies, to ensure maximum corporate profits, which has also been disastrous. It led to the incomes of corporate executives and chief executive officers (CEOs) skyrocketing to incredible heights during the last twenty years. In fact, just in the decade of the 1990s, CEO income rose 481 percent! The combined pay of America's five highest paid CEOs in 1999 was a staggering $1.2 billion. The average CEO in America is now paid about five hundred times the average employee's wages. To show you the rate of increase, back in 1980 the average CEO of a major corporation was paid 42 times more than an average American worker. By 1990, CEOs were paid 85 times more than workers. By 1999 (after Congress was controlled by Republicans for just five years), CEOs were paid 476 times more than the average worker. And that trend has continued due to Republican abuse of power. (See the page on Poverty in America for some other relevant statistics.)

All this speaks to Ronald Reagan's real legacy, and history will reveal that. It will also reveal that George W. Bush not only continued but expanded Reaganite policies and caused even more harm and injustice. That is why we must repudiate Reaganism, Bushism, the "Christian Right," and the whole right-wing Neo-Conservative Movement, once and for all.