The Reagan Revolution.

The WSJ has this:

"Twenty-five years ago today, Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as the 40th President of the United States promising less intrusive government, lower tax rates and victory over communism. On that same day, the American hostages in Iran were freed after 444 days of captivity. If the story of history is one long and arduous march toward freedom, this was a momentous day well worth commemorating.

All the more so because over this 25-year period prosperity has been the rule, not the exception, for America--in stark contrast to the stagflationary 1970s. Perhaps the greatest tribute to the success of Reaganomics is that, over the course of the past 276 months, the U.S. economy has been in recession for only 15. That is to say, 94% of the time the U.S. economy has been creating jobs (43 million in all) and wealth ($30 trillion). More wealth has been created in the U.S. in the last quarter-century than in the previous 200 years. The policy lessons of this supply-side prosperity need to be constantly relearned, lest we return to the errors that produced the 1970s." via Blogs for Bush

I voted for the first time in 1980 and I voted for Jimmy Carter. It's a fact I'm not proud of, but we all have the indiscretions of our youth. Growing up in a political family I was quite tired of politics by the time I went to college. I wanted nothing to do with it. But ever since high school I had started questioning the welfare state. It had done such damage to the black community in my state. I had seen firsthand how truly awful it really was.

I remember when Reagan won, my father was disappointed, but I didn't really care one way or another. But over the next few years Reagan's positive messages and the renewal of pride in our country and our military sort of took me in. I started paying attention again to world events and to this charismatic caring President.

Over the 2 terms of Reagan my whole outlook changed. I started to realize that the good intentions of the Democrats really did pave the road to hell for the poor. In trying to give a helping hand, we had actually squashed any hope of coming out of poverty. Welfare, despite reforms, is still a generational cycle of poverty that cannot seem to be broken. I started to realize that the overburden of taxes wasn't just something we had to accept. That we could fight for change in the tax codes and stop the billions of dollars of fraud that overruns the beaucracy of our government. I realized that people deserved to keep more of the money they worked so hard for and that they could do a better job of using that money to help the poor than the government ever did. Which is why, I suppose, that more people gave more to charity during the Reagan years than ever before. But even Reagan couldn't fight the bloat that is government and it continues to be the growing blob that it is and both parties can be to blame for that.

Anyone who reads this blog knows it was also then that I became concerned about what abortion was doing to my generation of women. Reagan spoke out against abortion when it was an issue that even Republicans wished would go away. It would have been easy to stay quiet on such a controversial issue, but he didn't. That impressed me and made me look at this issue more closely. Which in many ways changed the course of my life. I started to focus on others instead of myself. I decided to be a mother instead of an actress. Everything that is good and wonderful in my life came from that decision. My family, my best friends, and my faith.

10 years after Reagan was sworn in, the Soviet Union was dissolved and Russia would begin applying for membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. No one dreamed that would happen except maybe Reagan. And that's why we loved him. He believed in what we desired, but thought impossible, and he made it happen.