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The victories have been coming thick and fast for Ronald Reagan recently, and one byproduct has been a new readiness on the part of his critics to acknowledge the tremend ous resourcefulness and undeniable long-range impact of this remarkable man. When Mr. Reagan announced that tax reform would be the number-one objective of his second term, Washington's numerous cynics, both in politics and in the media, didn’t even bother to turn over in their sleep. But now it seems certain that a truly meaningful tax reform bill one that slashes all tax rates, closes many loopholes, doubles the personal exemption, and removes the truly poor from the tax rolls altogether — will be on the president’s desk for signature in less than three months. And while there is plenty of credit to be handed out all around — to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski, Senate Finance Chairman Robert Packwood and New Jersey’s Democratic Sena tor Bill Bradley, for example —the fact that we have tax reform at all is essentially owing to the vision and determination of one man: Ronald Reagan. After all, the Democrats have controlled both houses of Congress for all but 11 of the last 54 years; if they had really wanted tax reform, it was certainly within their power to enact it. Nor has the GOP shown any overpowering enthusiasm for the idea. In fact, a majority of House Republicans tarnished their record a bit further just last December, by joining ultra-liberal Democrats in a bid to keep Rostenkowski’s flawed measure from even going to the Senate, where it could be (and was) vastly improved. As with tax reform, so with mili tary aid to the Nicaraguan contras. House Speaker Tip O’Neill laid his personal prestige and formidable powers of leadership on the line again and again over a period of years in an effort to deny Mr. Reagan the funds he requested. The opinion polls duti fully reported that the American people (at least when asked just the right questions) were heavily against such aid. For its part, the Washington press corps, in truly Stakhanovite style, delivered one hot and smoking story after another — about inhu mane conduct, corruption, etc., among the contras — to Capitol Hill just days before every critical vote on the issue. But when the smoke finally blew away, there was Mr. Reagan with 221 votes for military aid — and Tip O’Neill nursing 209. Not all of Mr. Reagan’s jousts with Congress, to be sure, have ended so triumphantly. New Mexico Republi can Pete Domenici, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, has joined hands with his opposite number in the House, Pennsylvania Democrat William Gray, to try to force Mr. Reagan to agree to a tax hike or endure deeply damaging slashes in the defense budget. But they may yet learn that Americans don’t like to see that kind of cynical politics played with their defense — especially in a budget that, at the very same time, lovingly preserves all but 2 of 34 domestic programs that Mr. Reagan was ready to abolish altogether. Certainly those chuckles about how Mr. Reagan would see his clout swiftly diminishing in his ‘‘lame duck”’ second term have died in a great many threats. Not only his popularity but his authority are currently at or near their all-time highs. As Jimmy Carter's former director of domestic policy, Stuart Eizenstat, recently admitted to the New York Times, President Reagan’s ‘‘accomplishments have been extraordinary, in the sense that for the last five years everybody has played off his agenda — everybody. It’s not whether you cut domestic spending, it’s how much. It’s not whether you increase defense spend ing, but how much. He has captured the high ground on virtually every major issue of consequence, and controlled the debate as well as any president since Roosevelt.
Newspaper Details
Kittanning Leader Times
Kittanning, Pennsylvania, US
Wed, Jul 16, 1986
Page 4
Full Page
Clipped by
Roger M.
USA 01 Jul 2026
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