“I am,” former Governor Ronald Reagan proudly proclaimed in 1980, “a Sagebrush Rebel.” Reagan’s common cause with westerners besieged by a host of federal agencies came as no surprise.
Forty-four percent of California, which Reagan governed for eight years, is managed by those agencies; thus, he saw hubris, hyperbole, and humor whenever a federal employee declared, “I’m from the federal government and I’m here to help you.”
When Ronald Reagan was sworn in, he became the first president since the birth of the modern environmental movement a decade before to have seen, first hand, the impact of excessive federal environmental regulation on the ability: of state governments to perform their constitutional functions; of local governments to sustain healthy economies; and of private citizens to use their own property.