In light of what would have been Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday, there's been a lot of talk about his legacy around here. Now I'm not talking about the myth that today's Republicans like to push, but the reality that today's Republicans like to ignore. Just yesterday I reposted a five-year-old diary about Reagan's pathetically inappropriate response to the AIDS epidemic. Later in the day, Clarknt67 did amuch better job of raking Reagan over the coals and mitcho told us about Reagan the attempted puppy mauler while Mike Stark did his usual bang up job of pointing out the truth about Reagan's real presidential legacy. Despite all this talk though, I still get the feeling there's still something missing.
You see, what I haven't read much about is Reagan the governor. After all, it was as governor of California that he polished his political chops and earned his conservative bona fides as a small government, tax-cutting fiscal conservative, right?
Maybe not so much.
The website Presidents: A Reference History gives us the lowdown on Governor Reagan.
Reagan entered office surrounded by conservative political outsiders from southern California, fueled with ideological fervor. But the pressures of politics quickly forced the new administration to compromise. In the end, Reagan's governorship was symbolically radical but substantively conventional. Having inherited a substantial budget deficit from the previous administration, Reagan ordered an across-the-board 10-percent reduction in state spending, only to have to restore funds to a host of programs that were already so lean they could not survive the cuts. Within a year he was pressing for a major tax increase—in part to address the budget deficit, in part to give him a fiscal cushion so that he would not have to ask again. Shaped in the end by Democrats in the legislature, the final bill produced a highly progressive tax increase, the highest in the history of California (or of any other state). Reagan signed it, blaming the irresponsibility of his predecessor. When the tax increases produced a budget surplus in subsequent years, he attributed it to his administration's managerial skill.
In the end, Reagan's budget was, in fact, more than twice as high as Brown's; and while much of that growth was a result of inflation, some of it was because of spending increases in the same programs that conservatives had once vowed to cut or abolish—many of them programs important to some of Reagan's critical constituencies. He worked effectively with the Democratic legislature on a series of tax and welfare reforms that were not at all consistent with the more radical agenda of Reagan's most conservative supporters. He oversaw one of the largest (and most expensive) water projects in the nation's history. And despite his harsh rhetorical attacks on the University of California for its alleged coddling of radicals, his administration was generally supportive of the system and helped it to grow. State government under Reagan, according to Gary G. Hamilton and Nicole Woolsey Biggart, did not "shrink and allow private citizens to handle their own affairs," as Reagan had once promised. "Instead government entrenched itself in many ways as a strong, effective force in California society" ( Governor Reagan, Governor Brown [New York, 1984], p. 214).
(emphasis mine)
Yep, you read that right. Governor Ronald Reagan - responsible for the largest tax increase in the history of California or any other state at the time and proving that government could be a "strong, effective force." And all this from the man who famously said "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"
Wake up conservatives, even your famed idol knew your "conservative values" were bullshit.