WWRD? (What Would Reagan Do) – Part 1

American Exceptionalism Blog ^ | April 29, 2011 | Trent Derr

[TDerr]

Are you better off than you were two years ago? For most people, the answer is no. Compared to two years ago, more people are unemployed, the credit markets are still a mess, businesses are still being stymied by further federal regulation, and the global community has no idea what we stand for with our foreign policy.

What if we could roll the clock back? Roll it back a little more than two years to September 2008. At that time, the United States was at one of our more critical inflection points. We had military actions in both Iraq and Afghanistan, our southern border states were seeing a serious uptick in crime being committed by illegal aliens, the economy was starting to stagnate, and we had a looming credit crisis. Over a series of postings, we’ll address how Reagan would have addressed each of these issues. What Would Reagan Do?

The Credit Crisis

Reagan was a true believer in the free market. He believed in capitalism, American businesses, and most importantly the American people. Reagan knew that one of the key mechanisms of the free market is to correct imbalances that occur in the exchange of goods and currency. If you ever had any doubt about Reagan’s belief in free markets, look at how he handled the stock crash on “Black Monday”, stock market collapse of October 19, 1987. On that day, the stock market dropped by over 22%. Keep in mind that is nearly double the percentage drop that occurred in October 29, 1929 that is widely believed by Liberals as the trigger of the Great Depression.