Ronald Reagan on Government Reform President of the U.S., 1981-1989; Republican Governor (CA)

We the people reversed course of government

'We the People' tell the government what to do; it doesn't tell us. 'We the People' are the driver; the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Almost all the world's constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which 'We the People' tell the government what it is allowed to do. 'We the People' are free.

Big enough to give everything means they can take it away

Warning against runaway statism, the Gipper liked to quip, "A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take it all away." And that truism reminds me yet again that the ultimate point of free enterprise and free markets can be summed up in just one word: freedom. The bigger the government, the smaller the freedom. And if the government controls the economy, it also controls the media and the right to free speech. As they say, the only way to be guaranteed a free press is to own one--private ownership is a vital check against state power.

1982: Agreed with Indiana resolution against paternalism

• "We are fed up with subsidies, doles, and paternalism. We are no one's stepchild. We have grown up. We serve notice that we will resist Washington, DC adopting us.
• Be it resolved that we respectfully petition and urge Indiana's congressmen and senators to vote to fetch our county courthouse and city halls back from Pennsylvania Avenue. We want government to come home."

Not intention to do away with government; but make it work

But the American people aren't children, and the choice before us isn't one of security versus insecurity, or safety versus fear. We are offering Americans the same choice as Ronald Reagan did more than a quarter century ago when he said: "It is not my intention to do away with government. It is, rather, to make it work--work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it."

This fundamental choice has been debated in the name of many different things over the past year & a half: health-care reform, energy policy, economic policy, housing policy. But ultimately it's a debate about what kind of country we want to have.

Free market can best determine winners and losers

In the three decades since the Reagan Revolution, Americans have been preached to from pulpits far and wide the holy word of unregulated markets as the true path to a higher standard of living. As part of the new religion, we were converted from citizens to consumers and taught the catechism about how the market--not "equality of conditions"--was the foundation of our country. Along the way, the social contract was fed into a shredder.

OpEd: Reagan staff made a deal for 1981 Iran hostage release

The more the plans fail, the more the planners plan

Appointed judges who reinforced conservative political goals

The Warren Court had transformed American law; many of his Court's decisions quickly worked their way into the permanent substructure of American law. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which protected newspapers that published controversial speech; Miranda v. Arizona, which established new rules for interrogating criminal suspects; even Griswold v. Connecticut, which announced a right of married people to buy birth control, under the broader heading of privacy-all these cases, along with the Warren Court's many pronouncements on race, became unassailable precedents.

OpEd: Led shift to deregulation, but didn't start it

Politicians are important, but they cannot effectuate economic and social change unless the preconditions for change already exist, or unless extraordinary circumstances allow it. By the time Reagan came to power, the economy had already started to shift. Deregulation, for example, unleashed many of America's industries before Reagan took office. Small, profitable airlines, banks, and high-tech companies had already gained a competitive foothold and were intent on bringing down regulatory barriers. The percentage of Americans workers belonging to labor unions was already declining. And the number of business lobbyists in Washington, DC had already begun rising; indeed, the number escalated sharply during the Democratic administration of Bill Clinton.

1981: Government is not the solution; it is the problem

Told friends he failed to cut size of government enough

The lower half of the US labor force carries roughly 4% of a federal income tax burden that is largely borne now by the top ten percent of earners. Then, there is corporate welfare, which Beltway lobbyists fight to preserve and expand, and the pork barrel projects congressmen simply must take home to the district. We may have received the tipping point. Even Ronald Reagan, who succeeded in so much, conceded to friends that he failed to cut back the growth and the size of government as he had hoped.

1981: Focused exclusively on women as Supreme Court nominees

New Federalism: shift programs to states & deregulate

Principal mission was government deregulation

OMB led the deregulatory charge, seeking to accomplish through executive action what another administration might have attempted through the legislative process. OMB [required] strict cost-benefit analyses of all federal regulations, [and was accused of] “ideological arithmetic” that ignored the cost in lives and illnesses.

Reagan might have been able to do more if his approach to deregulation had been less overtly pro-business. Instead, he aroused the hostility of liberals with appointments that critics likened to naming a fox to guard a chicken coop.

Softened on “Gov’t isn’t the solution; gov’t is the problem”

Only those veteran observers who remembered his willingness to compromise, when necessary, as president of the Screen Actors Guild and Governor of California, were reassured that Reagan knew what he was doing.

In 1981, cut 23,000 pages of Federal Register regulations