highthief

Some economists are now suggesting that - due to the large number of workers who received the day off for Reagan's funeral, the US economy lost about 500 million dollars in productivity (I think that is just for government employees).

Without being partisan, do you think such expenses and costs are worthwhile for things like states funerals, be it in the US or other nations?

MSD

Even if you didn't like him, he was pretty important. He deserved it.

Sparhawk

Absolutely, yes. It is an important part of coming together and remembering that we are all Americans first - that we are here to celebrate with each other the passing of one of our own, one of our leaders.

-Lifelong Democrat

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tecoyah

Agreed....worth the cost, much as Memorial Day costs the economy a like sum each year. Didn't care for his policies at the time, but I can give credit where it is due....he was a powerful and productive president.

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highthief

I just think of the money involved, the loss of production.

Is it an American thing you think? If a former Canadian Prime Minister dies, I think everyone goes to work.

I imagine if the Queen dies, Britain takes a day off.

I think when DeGaulle died France shut down but not for just any old President.

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BigGov

Reagan was a president who served for 2 terms, he played a pretty big role in our history. He's hardly "just any old President".

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Sparhawk

It's been tradition to declare a federal holiday whenever a former president dies. Your profile says you were born in '68, so you should be old enough to remember when Nixon died back in '95 or so, the same was accorded to him (Nixon requested a funeral in California, and no state funeral, if I recall correctly, which may be why there is more hulabaloo about this one).

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highthief

Does my profile also say I'm not American?



Nixon was the only other one I recall recently and as noted, there was no state funeral for Trickie Dickie.

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highthief

*shrug*

It was not in reference to Reagan, it was in reference to De Gaulle and the fact that he was far from an ordinary French President.

KMA-628

Correct. Nixon specifically requested no state funeral (he didn't want do have old "issues" brought up).

As for Reagan, it was well-deserved. He did a lot for us above and beyond his presidency.

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billege

He also let the ketchup be counted as a vedgetable in school lunches. That let the Agriculture Dept. off the budget hook.

Reagan was our last cowboy, and not an all bad one. Death is when we foget a persons screwups, it seems.

Did he deserve it? Sure, the country needs to believe that it's leaders are honorable people. So, really, America needed it more than Regan deserved it.

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DelayedReaction

Economists are weird about things. I'm sure, somewhere, an economist is capable of proving that Reagan's funeral actually MADE money based on something or another. The only people who truly understand what economists say are other economists.

He's a former President. The man deserves respect. He also deserves not to be dug up every fifteen minutes so the media can run a piece on him.

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onetime2

In the grand scheme of things (a 10 Trillion dollar economy) it's inconsequential.

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onetime2

Hee hee. That made me laugh.

In fact it wouldn't take much to prove. Just think about the boost to the local communities (in California and Washington) from all those visitors. They do have to eat, drink, sleep, etc.

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cheeterbo

reagan was a tool. in his second term the disease had begun. even though all he REALLY did was read well (something i don't think gw can do at all) the funeral was ok, except for all the fawning over what he supposedly was responsible for.

the funeral said something about, i guess, says something about us to other nations.

i forget who said this, but it was some talkshow guy, that they felt sorry for carter and ford because they aren't going to get this.

nanofever

I'm going to need to see a source showing how that much productivity was lost AND showing how much productivity was gained from increased worker moral from both a day off from work and the media painting an idelic picture of American on that day, in a cost-benefit analysis, with graphs. I'm willing to bet the benefits from the day off at LEAST equaled the cost, if not added a minor boost to the economy.

Also, I can use economics prove my bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch is going to win the 2004 election.

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highthief

Each month there is a productivity report launched and some economists showed that, based on payroll and average number of hours worked by government employees alone, monthly productivity dropped half a billion.

I'm not saying the day off was wrong, just wondering if we can put a dollar value on it, at what point is it too much money.

edwhit

Don't feel sorry for other presidents that won't get the same amount of "love" when he/she dies!

It wasn't just a funeral for a dead man or a dead president, it was a funeral for a dead president that was loved and admired for one thing or another by millions!

He made an effort to be loved and it payed off. He was.

Was the price worth it? I think emotional issues can pretty much always be looked at from two angles.

1) You can't put a price on it.
2) If money wasn't made from it it was financially foolish.

Haven't said that, I agree with the people that say our country needed it. Having recently gone through Clinton and having half the country either hate him or lose some respect for him and now going through Bush having half the country hate him and half the country hating the other half it's nice to get together and agree that "there lies a great man that touched many".

(sorry about the run on sentence. No time to correct it )

roachboy

i thought the reagan funeral was vulgar and endless and amounted to a long free commercial for the right.

and it was a carefully planned free commercial.

i do not understand how any therapeutic function is possible from such a vulgar and endless event.

i do not understand how americans come to identify a democracy-lite with the figure of a Leader.

j.g. ballard is right: in a television age, america has come to be a kind of super-monarchy that legitimates itself with periodic rituals of pseudo-rotation (elections after which factions of the ruling class switch positions).

the best expose of ballard's position is in the re-search edition of "atrocity exhibition"---i highly recommend it.

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Averett

Well, I don't have much of an opinion on Regan being a tool or not, so I'll leave that part alone. But umm... when you comment on people only being able to read well, and you can't even use capitals.... well, it's time to take a step back.

As far as the funeral itself, I was in Maryland getting my nails done with my best friend from college before her wedding and we were watching the CNN coverage of the events. It was said that every single president shortly after they take office has to specify what they would want as a funeral. Regan requested this. Who knows what Carter or Ford requested. Nixon did not want a state funeral, it had nothing to do with what happened with Watergate. It's my understanding that if he requested a state funeral he would have gotten it.

I could be wrong, does anyone know about this?

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cosmoknight

Like him or not he was a very popular President. He also may be the last in the near future who was able to pull voters across party lines. All Presidents deserve the same treatment. I despised most of Clinton policies yet he was popular and elected twice so he would be deserving of the same honors. Like all funerals you are not only burying the person but all grudges you held against them. Stopping the government for one day can be argued to have boosted the private sector as they had a day without the burdens of government being inflicted on them.

Sparhawk

You are absolutely right, Averett. It is up to the individual President, and his wishes and that of his family.

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Dwayne

I dont mind that Regan got this huge funeral, however I do mind that it did turn into a commercial or good PR for Dubbya. That is what upsets me about the funeral.

Dawson70

I agree as well. That is chump change to our economy and he was an ex president. One of the perks of reaching the top.

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james t kirk

I agree completely.

There is the mistique built up around Reagan, but damned if I can think of one good thing that he did.

The man was just a talking head in my opinion.

And all this crap about him defeating the Soviets is pure bullshit. They imploded due to their own arrogance and their stupid system of keeping people down. Gorbechev had more to do with ending the cold war than Reagan ever dreamed about in his wildest dreams.

Seaver

Reagan made America proud of itself for the first time since Vietnam. That's why he was so popular even though most people didnt agree to his politics, they loved him.

The Russians only imploded because they tried to keep up the military buildup that Reagan did. They tried to match dollar-to-ruble in spending, and their economy couldnt handle it. When it was clear the system would collapse Gorbe started dismantling the Socialist part of the state. Put us in a big deficit but our economy could handle it.

Zeld2.0

The fall of the Soviet Union cannot be completely put on any one person or any one reason. Those who say Reagan was the reason are wrong just as those who say it was all deficit or spending or what not.

My own research says its was a combination of years of extravagent spending (Brezhnev incresaed the military without any possibility of supporting it in the long run), a failing system (communism itself) leading to internal pressure, quick reforms that were well-intentioned but were volatile and unpredictable (Gorbachev's), years of outside pressure (early days of containment all the way to Reagan), and years of oppression which pushed people for freedom (most important imo).

And anyways back on the original topic: it's just not a big issue.

Sen

All those years of extravagant spending by the Russians are directly related to Reagan's Defense budgets. They felt like they had to keep up and/or exceed our strength. Because their communist economy wouldn't support that strategy, they ultimately crumbled.

As for the funeral, yes he absolutely deserved it and America needed it. Admittedly, I'll have a problem when Clinton is burried if he is treated with all of the same pomp and circumstance; but the fact remains he was a President too and the Office of President deserves our respect with a state funeral.

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jb2000

Funerals are not for the dead, they are for the living. Reagan's funeral was a chance for America to look back at a very momentous time in our history. While certainly not all of the events were either his fault or work, the period was none-the-less marked by his Presidency.

I do think that we need to look back honestly, and not succumb to attributing things to him that shouldn't be in a search to find ways to honor him.

For example, the ill-formed concept that he ended the Cold War is one of these things. Sure, he did good work in opposing Communism, as did many Presidents before him. Each in turn kept the pressure on the Soviets. It is pretty clear, historically looking back, that the Soviet Union was broken going into the 1980s. They had already been plotting a military strategy of overwhelming quantity, some could say from the time of the Tsars. In a world where technology was gaining the ability to overcome quantity to a greater degree, they had no choice but try and modernize their forces, and modernization of such huge forces was very expensive. This wasn't caused by any 1980s US budgets, but instead the steady focus on heavy R&D advancement in the US from the 1950s on.

Soviet military spending did increase in the 1980s, but it is easy to forget today why it did. We may see it as a natural counter to increased US spending, but this self-centric approach is ignorant of the actual Soviet planning process. It is certainly true that the Soviets, especially conservatives, were anxious about Western military improvements and eager to counter them. However, the USSR had a much bigger and immediate military spending drainhole it had to throw money to: Afghanistan. Reagan does deserve credit for supporting Afghans against the Soviets, and thus helping exacerbate the Soviet situation there. It cannot, however, be ignored that this helped create men such as Osama, the founders of the Taliban and other war lords of Afghanistan.

Reagan deserves due credit for the role he played in a long line of Presidents who kept up the fight against Communism, and the Soviet Union in particular. But to say that because he was there when the crumbling became apparant to the outside world he was the one who beat the Soviets would be like declaring that Zhukov was the one who defeated Germany because he captured Berlin; a little dismaying to those who had fought so hard on all fronts through the war towards the victory.

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Master_Shake

If I could track down exactly how much money I contributed to his funeral through taxes I would want that money back.

But then again, I'd want all my money back.

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Seaver

If I could track how much money went to pig farmers in Oklahoma I'd want my money back too, but it doesnt work that way.

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james t kirk

The funny thing is that if you talk to Russian immigrants and ask them about the collapse of communism they will tell you that it was a natural thing. Almost like the time was right for change sort of thing and that there was no stopping it.

Suggest to them (and I have believe me) that Reagan was somehow responsible, or even contributed and they will just laugh at you and your stupidity.

(I just had this convesation with a Russian emegre very recently infact.)

Reagan was a non factor to them.