Legacy: Tax Cuts and the End of the USSR

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Ralph Z. Hallow and Donald Lambro are both political correspondents at The Washington Times.

Ronald Reagan changed American politics by making conservatism and tax- cutting, free-market economics popular with middle-class voters, and ending the Cold War by defeating the "Evil Empire" with a muscular military that resonates throughout defense policy today, former advisers and aides to the 40th president say.

With his declaration of "Government is not the solution, it's the problem," Reagan took office in 1981 and immediately pursued the underpinnings of his long-held conservative beliefs: lowering taxes, curtailing government regulation over the economy, and attacking government waste and fraud.

"Reagan changed that to a debate over how much of what the American people earn would they be allowed to keep," said Gary Bauer, Reagan's …