Ronald Reagan’s Harmful Legacy

By Will Molesky

Edited by Kathryn Taleporos

According to News Gallop, Ronald Reagan had an extremely high approval rating of 73%, and maintains that approval rating in 2022. People saw him as a favorable leader who was entertaining and cared about his people and his country. However, Reagan ignored serious problems, and his policy of Reaganomics had detrimental effects that can still be felt today.

Reagan’s legacy was based on government deregulation. A quote by Reagan states that “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I'm from the government and I'm here to help’.” This is a detrimental thing to say as the president because it planted a seed in people's minds that they should be afraid of the government. While I do feel like you should not blindly trust the government, this message can be construed as to never ever trust your government, which has decayed public support.

One of Reagan's most famous policies was his policy of Reaganomics. This policy hurt the middle class at its peak. Reagan’s plan was to get America out of the recession so that businesses could hire more people, creating more jobs. This helped the recession and gave Americans more jobs at the start, but as time went on, this policy only hurt the middle class. This policy gave tax breaks to the wealthy while the middle class still had to pay more.

Unions are another essential part of the middle class, and Reagan had been known for being a union buster. Union busting is when a union goes on strike for either more pay or better benefits and the people of power fire the people protesting and hire new people. Reagan was a union buster and this affected the working class and had led to less people joining unions.

Reagan had also ignored the AIDS epidemic leading to misinformation and hysteria during the time. Aids had spread across the country and it was mostly found in gay men. This lead to a lot of homophobia and misinformation, many believing that gay people had caused the epidemic and that it could be transmitted from water, food, or air or any thing that you would share with another person, like a toilet seat.

People see Reagan as one of the greats and strived to make America better and achieved his mission. But Reagan's policies had only hindered the country. His policies that only benefited the wealthy can still be felt to this day with the inequality gap between classes, and the division of the United States due to a distrust in government has made America worse overall.