“We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up, not the government down. Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefitting from their success -- only then can societies remain economically alive, dynamic, progressive, and free. Trust the people. This is the one irrefutable lesson of the entire postwar period contradicting the notion that rigid government controls are essential to economic development.”

Reagan, like every President, had his flaws. But he did seem to understand some basic principles of life and liberty. he was right too...an economy is built by human action. Government action serves only to stifle and control prosperity and growth and it is meant to do exactly that. When someone subscribes to the false belief that Government has created anything they are unaware that anything created would be much greater without the drag of government ties to its ass.

And yet, he put us further in debt by excessive optional government spending and giving too much power to the top of private industry, both in exact opposition to his claim of "bottom up".

Reston, given that what you are saying is the truth, it does come off as entirely contradictory doesn't it? Still the quote on its own is valid, too bad he didn't or couldn't act on it.

Speaking of the "people", how 'bout those voters in the Bay State. Thank you Mass.

We've been trained by corporate media to believe that 'free markets' are a panacea for all ills. As a result, the preponderance of life is now governed by gigantic financial entities more closely resembling feudal royal satraps than representative government and responsible enterprise. This, while gobbling more of the fruits of an individual's labor than royalty and slave holders ever did, according to conservative Paul Craig Roberts. Ever increasing portions of the wealth created by our labor flowing directly to corporations instead of government doesn't equate with freedom. Common people accepting the mantra of 'free markets' would do well to remember that great tyranny doesn't give a hoot as to which end of the political spectrum it emanates from. Ronald Reagan was a paid shill for General Electric and Americans should remember exactly how he got his start in politics. Most have no idea. His legacy is empowered corporations at the expense of representative government and personal choice. I fail to find any "liberty" in that. Every president since has made this state of affairs worse, by bending an ever deeper knee to wholly rapacious financiers - even when they weren't their spawn.

Sounds good but this guy was the mater of sound good but a disaster for economic and governmental policy in this country causing the deficit and debt problems we have today. What "Top Down" meant to him was cutting taxes on the wealthest and hoping it would drip down to the neediest while at the same time running deficts and financing it with borrowing from China and Japan from whom we were to buy are cars and everything else while we laid off the working man here. The guy was thre greatest master deceit we have ever had.

He hardly kept his promises and he made government bigger. I was very disappointed.

As always Waffler playing the fool . The projected growth in size of government that was set in place by Carter and his Congress would have been 2 times as large in 1985 as it turned out to be. The so called "cuts" under Reagan were reductions in the rate of growth. Considering the inevitable vilification of anyone attempting fiscal responsibility, it was a miracle that Reagan accomplished what he did with the jackass party in control of the house.

The spending bills signed by Carter set the budget to be 2.6 trillion in 1985. Reagan’s efforts kept it to half that. We may yearn for a truly fiscal responsible government but as long as most of our population remains ignorant slowing down inevitable disaster may be the best we can do. Our current President gives us some hope however. He could get even the ignorant so enraged that they may come to their senses long enough that some of this may be reversed. Unfortunately even if we get the Obama team and the corrupt scum in congress out of office, the public attention span will limit the replacements to about 15 minutes to fix anything.

It all falls back to another one of President Reagans great quotes "Government is not the solution to our problem, government IS the problem!"

Five stars to John of Kalamazoo. Well said.

John, I don't believe we've tried free market capitalism yet. What you seem to be describing would be the result of crony capitalism. the system whereby corporations operate in conjunction with government. This could also be called economic fascism. Free flowing capital under this set up can flow to corporations or government it really doesn't matter...they just have different logo's. I believe what we need is to shut down the government's control of the issuance of currency, shut down the Fed. Then corporations will have to to truly sink or swim won't they?

He speaks with fork tongue - well done John Mann - I'm with Judith five stars

The quote is bang on. You can't get elected president without money from the real rich and powerful --Democrat and Republican alike. When government is used to corner the market for corporations, you get the kind of fascism we are heading towards today. When you give money to 'government,' you are giving it to men -- power corrupts, and when the government can merely take whatever it wants, we have a REAL problem.

This is a total contradiction to the way he governed. He singlehandedly ruined this nations economy. Let's see how the new ruling by the Supreme Court allows the big corperations to buy votes for republcan candidates!!! WHAT A SCAM !!!!!! No wonder why Boner(the drunk) and Mconnel (the moron are licking their chops.

Mighty Reagan is right. Who cares about what some say? Winning forty-nine states after the first 4-year of administration already tells us how happy individuals were to have a healthy environment - made healthy by the people themselves - to pursue happiness.