This page was last updated on June 13, 2004.

Reagan Stayed Away from the Region; Bill Vidonic; Beaver County Times; June 6, 2004.

Lame duck Democrat State Rep. Susan Laughlin demonstrated partisanship and/or historical and economic ignorance as quoted in the subject article.

"'He [President Reagan] did absolutely nothing for Beaver County - I know that,' said state Rep. Susan Laughlin, D-16, Conway.  'I really don't think he was around to help us when the steel mills were closing.  He could have had some major input in keeping the mills open.  He really should have stepped in here to help us.'"

[RWC] Let us remember the situation when President Reagan took office in 1981.  I'll use President Jimmy Carter's own words from mid 1979.

"... after listening to the American people I have been reminded again that all the legislation in the world can't fix what's wrong with America.  So, I want to speak to you first tonight about a subject even more serious than energy or inflation.  I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy.

"I do not mean our political and civil liberties.  They will endure.  And I do not refer to the outward strength of America, a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in the world, with unmatched economic power and military might.

"The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways.  It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will.  We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our Nation.

"The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.

"The confidence that we have always had as a people is not simply some romantic dream or a proverb in a dusty book that we read just on the Fourth of July.  It is the idea which founded our Nation and has guided our development as a people.  Confidence in the future has supported everything else -- public institutions and private enterprise, our own families, and the very Constitution of the United States.  Confidence has defined our course and has served as a link between generations.  We've always believed in something called progress. We've always had a faith that the days of our children would be better than our own.

"Our people are losing that faith, not only in government itself but in the ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy.  As a people we know our past and we are proud of it. Our progress has been part of the living history of America, even the world.  We always believed that we were part of a great movement of humanity itself called democracy, involved in the search for freedom, and that belief has always strengthened us in our purpose.  But just as we are losing our confidence in the future, we are also beginning to close the door on our past.

"In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption.  Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns.  But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning.  We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.

"The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us.  For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years.  Two-thirds of our people do not even vote.  The productivity of American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world.

"As you know, there is a growing disrespect for government and for churches and for schools, the news media, and other institutions.  This is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth and it is a warning.

"These changes did not happen overnight.  They've come upon us gradually over the last generation, years that were filled with shocks and tragedy."¹

That sounds pretty bad, but let's make President Carter's words more concrete.

• The United States had given away the Panama Canal.

• During 1979 at least, we had gasoline lines and rationing.  In the following few years was the point in time when we had the highest inflation-adjusted prices for gasoline, exceeding today's inflation-adjusted prices by a wide margin.

• Convinced the United States was a paper tiger, Soviet-style communism was expanding throughout the world.  The 1979 invasion of Afghanistan and conflicts in Central America and Angola are only a few examples.

• During November 1979, Iran took 52 American hostages in Tehran for 444 days, releasing them the day President Reagan took office.²

• A failed hostage rescue mission (Desert One) resulted in the deaths of eight servicemen.

• When I got a mortgage in early 1981, it had a 16% interest rate and that was considered good.  Rates later peaked at over 20%.

• Nationwide, unemployment was quickly approaching double digits.

• The average inflation rate for 1980 was 13.6%.

• Productivity of American workers was falling.

• The combination of high inflation, high interest rates, high unemployment, and low economic growth (stagnation) was termed "stagflation."  Prior to this time, many economists thought low growth and high inflation were mutually exclusive.

As we know, the United States was a vastly improved nation at the end of President Reagan's two terms.

With respect to steel, the fate of steel production in western Pennsylvania was sealed long before President Reagan took office, beginning during World War II.  Why didn't Mrs. Laughlin cite Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter?  In reality, the blame belonged to a changing world economy and inept company and labor union management.  Blaming Reagan for steel's collapse in Beaver County is like blaming an emergency room doctor for the death of a DOA patient.

What did Mrs. Laughlin want President Reagan to do?  Ban or limit imports?  Implement price controls?  Subsidize exports?  All of those alternatives would have destroyed other parts of the economy and in the long run would not have helped the U.S. steel industry.  There was nothing any president could have done at that point in time to save steel in Beaver County.

If Mrs. Laughlin could see beyond partisanship, she would see President Reagan did a lot of good for Beaver County because he did a lot of good for the United States and the world.  President Reagan wasn't perfect, but he was pretty darn good.

1. Energy and National Goals, Address to the Nation; President Jimmy Carter; July 15, 1979.  Though President Carter never used the word in this speech, this is more often than not referred to as Carter's "malaise" speech.

2. The number of hostages started at 66.  Iran released 13 a couple of weeks after the embassy capture and released another hostage in July 1980 for health reasons.

© 2004 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.