Reagan Birthday Dinner Draws Area Republicans

The Republican Party of Milwaukee County and fellow supporters celebrated their annual Reagan Day Dinner at Serb Hall in Milwaukee last week, honoring the birthday of the late President.

February 6, 2017 would have marked President Reagan’s 106^th birthday.

The sold-out event featured speeches from some prominent Wisconsin political figures including Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Gov. Scott Walker, Sen. Ron Johnson, Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner and Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel.

Congressman Sensenbrenner spoke about recent protests by referencing a Politico article entitled “Inside the Protest Movement that has the Republicans Reeling.”  Speaker Ryan spoke about his experiences on election night, and outlined plans for 2017, which include two budgets.

According to Ryan, the first budget includes repealing and replacing Obamacare, passing Congressional Review Acts, which can go back 60 legislative days into the prior administration, to veto regulations passed during that time. That budget would also include providing needed tools to the military. The second budget would control our budget, entitlement spending control and tax reform.

Radio talk show host Dan O’Donnell of News/Talk 1130 WISN emceed the event.

“One of Ronald Reagan’s greatest allies and closest partners was Margaret Thatcher, the prime minister of Great Britain,” O’Donnell said. “And when she was relatively early on in her term, it was much like what we were seeing now. She was facing a lot of pressure from the public and members of the labor party to make a U-turn on her conservative policies and her conservative ideology. Well she said in a very famous speech, flatly, ‘the lady’s not for turning.‘”

The dinner took place in Serb Hall’s appropriately named “Hall of Presidents” where attendees dined amongst portraits of other former Presidents such as Presidents Carter, Kennedy, Nixon. Tables with an American flag centerpiece and a small cup with red, white and blue jelly beans completed the atmosphere.

Sen. Johnson spoke for about 11 minutes on a variety of topics, and concluded his speech talking about moving forward.

“So as we march forward, after let’s face it, a surprising but great election victory,” Johnson said. “Let’s not move forward with hubris, let’s move forward with true humility. In the spirit of that shared goal, recognizing that we are all Gods’ children, and we were all put on this earth to help each other.”

Gov. Walker spoke for about 16 minutes at the event and one of the items was a “little glimpse” into the new budget, which included workforce improvement by “making targeted investments” and education improvement, entitlement reform and others.

“Jimmy Carter gave us Ronald Reagan. Thank you President Carter for that,” Schimel said near the beginning of his speech.  Schimel’s speech also focused on Wisconsin on the law side in areas such as concealed carry, voter ID, right-to-work and others. He also spoke about other Wisconsin-involved court battles.

President Reagan became the 40^th president of the United States on January 20, 1981 after earning 489 electoral votes to Carter’s 49 in the 1980 election. He served two terms as President and survived an assassination attempt just 69 days into his presidency.

President Reagan died on June 5, 2004 after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease a decade earlier. President Reagan’s wife, Nancy Reagan, passed away on March 6, 2016 of congestive heart failure.