The Children of Reagan

There's an article titled 'What is a "constitutional conservative" anyway?' over at Salon.com right now.

Here's my favorite quote from it:

Taking office in 1980 amid rising gas prices, a stagnant economy, and high unemployment, Ronald Reagan argued that government was not the solution to the nation’s problems, but rather it was the problem. Yet as Berkowitz has written, Reagan’s rhetoric deploring "unnecessary and excessive growth of government" implicitly conceded that there could be necessary and appropriate growth, and he in fact allowed taxes to rise and government spending to grow above inflation without sacrificing his principles.

Reagan's rhetoric didn't implicitly make an argument for growing government in any fashion.  To walk away from his speeches with that type of interpretation requires the same type of rhetorical hair-splitting employed by biblical apologists.


I'm grateful that Reagan did compromise on his professed principles.  The problem with the current crop of conservatives is that they take Reagan at his word and actually believe what he was saying.