All human beings are flawed. That doesn't give you carde blanche for taking cheap pot shots at Reagan without offering the full set of circumstances and revealing all the facts. That might lead of us to conclude you're just an idiot liberal out causing trouble.
>>>>>1. Amnesty for Illegals by RR. Actual Amnesty instead of proposing it
Reagan didn't support open borders and he said many times: "A nation without borders is not a nation." Reagan did sign into law the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. The IRCA of 1986 included severe penalties for employers who hired illegals --- up to a $1,000,000 fine --- improved border enforcement and a legalization provision --- a one time amnesty for an original 300K. Not the 2.7 million illegals pushed through the system by the Dems. If the IRCA law had been enforced and not gutted by Ted Kennedy and the Senate Democrat majority, the IRCA of 1986 would have been successful in the long run and today we wouldn't be talking about massive illegal immigration across our borders and 15-20 million illegals living in the US.
You want to blame someone for the failure of IRCA of 1986, blame Ted Kennedy and the Senate Democrats. Not Reagan.
>>>>>2. Failure to privatize social security. RR never even tried it whereas GWB burned through political capital
BS! From 1964 to 1980, Reagan spoke about privatizing Social Security. When Reagan took office in 1981 he quickly found out that SS was the third rail of American politics. Reagan had two choices. Compromise on his original reform package, or allow the Democrats led by Tip O'Neil, to demagogue the issue and run rough shod over his entire agenda. With many experts saying SS would start going backrupt by as early as 1983, time wasn't on Reagan's side. Reagan`s decision was to appoint Alan Greenspan as chairman of a Social Security reform commission. Its job was to come up with a plan to reform SS and make it fiscally solvent once again. That is exactly what happened. SS withholding taxes did go up, from 4.8% to 5.7% and the rate of benefits growth was slowed down a bit. I didn't like the outcome, but Reagan did the best he could do under the dire set of circumstances facing him. Not having control of the House meant Reagan had to make some compromise on this issue. Bush had control of the House and the Senate in early 2005 when he campaigned for his SS reform proposal. In the end, Bush failed miserably. Bush had more success passing the prescription drug program. The largest growth of the federal government since Medicare. Nothing to be proud of.
>>>>>3. Sandra Day O'Connor. Yuck!!! Meirs would have been about the same, but guess what, GWB actually listened to us
BS! The fact is, SOME Supreme Court justices change over time. While its true O'Conner didn't turn out conservative enough for most Republicans, the outcry against her was the loudest after Reagan left office. In the 1990`s O'Conner became a more moderate Justice and swing vote on the high court. Bush nominating Miers was one of the all time worst picks for the USSC.
>>>>>4. Bowing down to Islamists. Pullout of Beirut. Not invading Iran. GWB to the best of his abilities took on all comers
LOL My BS meter is pinned on high! Reagan did stand up to the terrorists. What Reagan didn't do, was exacerbate the civil war that was going on in Beirut and all of Lebanon at that time. There were also geopolitical circumstances to consider that involved the Soviets and their support of Syria. Sorry, an all out war wasn't in the cards. Besides, Reagan's big foreign policy challenge was ending the Cold War through victory. Which is exactly what he did.
>>>>>5. Screwing with the tax cut. RR gave up on the simple low tax rates that he himself had pushed
WTF are you talking about! Reagan lowered the federal income tax rates from 70% to 28%. The lowest tax rates since the 1920's. He also left office with a two-tier tax rate structure in place, 28% and 15%.
>>>>>6. Abortion. RR did not campaign against Roe V Wade aggresively
Even more BS! Reagan campaigned for President in 1976, 1980 and 1984 on reversing Roe v Wade and ending abortion on demand as the national policy of the federal government. Reagan was the first President to address the National Right to Life Day held in WashDC every year. Read Reagan's essay, "Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation" and get educated on one of America's greatest President's and conservative leaders.
Like Reagan, Bush was pro-life and good on terrorism and war issues. Like JFK, Bush was instinctive and right pushing for tax cuts. But he was a liberal on most domestic policies. His doubling of the Education budget, his huge increases in discretionary spending and his trillion dollar prescription drug program marked Bush as a big government Republican, in the mold of Nixon, Ford and Bush41.
thank you.