Even so long ago, it brings tears to my eyes to hear someone like this talk. I wish we had men like this today. I really really wish it.

What a wonderful individual. Magnanimous, gracious, not an ounce of hubris. A strong pillar of strength, humor and kindness that is a proud representation of my great country. God bless you Mr. Reagan.

A thoroughly authentic man and leader. Something you can't fake. RIP.

He was the first President I voted for, and he was the BEST President I voted for. It has been a precipitous and sad decline since him.

Boy do we miss him.

I wish I knew how to "like" some of the following remarks in praise of such a good and honorable president. President Reagan was really almost at his best when he spoke at Notre Dame. I hope if anyone else watches this, especially those young kids who today criticize him, realize he was a true American president, they will take back some of their sad remarks and learn to praise who was a truly good man and a great President of the United States of America. RIP Mr President.

I miss him so much and the days of the 80s, too.

If only everyone could aspire to be such a great American. He was truly an inspiration.

A tremendous speech, such spunk, glib-Irish storytelling who knew as well as any other president if not better, how to act presidential! Hollywood, Screen Actors Guild helped him became who he is even if you did not always agreed with or what he would say. But that did not diminish one's admiration for Reagan. No one better could help us understand that only because of other generations that came before us we are who we are. A genuine trademark of a leader! A true American icon. Visionary.

The one and the only. God, bless Ronald Reagan. May he rest in peace.

It is obvious to see the genius of President Reagan. I so miss the spirit of him. His speech was PHENOMENAL!!! God Bless you sir, RIP. We need you today!

How beautiful to have a President like Reagan in office who understood the American tradition of freedom, local governance, and limited government. If only the principles he possessed would rise again to reside in the Oval office.

Reagan was so ahead of his time.

That was a very inspiring speech. I was only 4 years at the time this was given. After reading the full transcript of President Obama's recent Commencement Address and then watching this one, I was struck by the complete night and day difference between President Obama and President Reagan. I wonder what happened in the almost 30 years since President Reagan gave that speech. It's up to us, today's Americans, to take up the torch and press on.

11:58 - 12:50 No one can ever doubt that Reagan loved this country and rightly honored our courageous and visionary founding fathers.

truly the best , i like mr reagan . today we need a president like him. all the best USA from germany.

Good Day to all:President Ronald Reagan was the Greatest U.S.President in U.S.History!We Love President Ronald Reagan from all of our Hearts!Very Sincerlly¨My Deep Respect Mr President!TG.

one of my fave speech

I understand what you mean when you say we will never see someone like him again, but I think he would have said this himself.. that we will see great leaders again. His optimism about the future of the country and the goodness of it's people is what made him a great man. I miss him and believe we will see more great American leaders step forward if we, as citizens, meet our duties and stop hating one another because of political differences. Compromise is not a sign of weakness. He knew that.

I don't have to set up any mathematical criteria for anything. The advance of individual liberty and its effect on the human experience need not be justified by assigning numerical values crunched with a calculator, or relegated to some statistic with decimal points. Tax rates, interest rates, inflation, and government intrusion into the economy all fell sharply during Reagan's eight years. For these reasons alone his tenure was a clear success.

Amen brother!!!

I can only pray for another statesman like the great Ronald Reagan to lead this great nation, that has been adrift from the founding principles which were spoken of each and every time by this great President.

Carter was in no way responsible for the 80's boom because R&D investment didn't start to kick in until after the 1981 tax cuts. If you ask Michael Dell, Steve Jobs, and other Silicon Valley CEO's, they will tell you that it was during the early 1980s when investment really began to surge. This is because money that would have otherwise been sucked into the government was now free to flow into truly profitable ventures in the private sector.

This man is why I registered as a Republican when I became eligible to vote. Sadly I wasn't old enough to vote for him.

I wish we had him back. God Bless you, President Ronald Reagan, May you RIP. It is because of you Sir i became an American Citizen and proud to be.

We don't deserve another President Reagan. He saved us once, and we took our eye off the ball.

Now this is the Notre Dame that I remember! :D

Principles don't change. They are used to address issues no matter what time in history and address them with careful deliberation with the goal of expanding and protecting freedom and individual liberty.

@Tsnore He had just been awarded an honorary doctorate at this ceremony.

I appreciate both Regan and Obama. A very difficult job in challenging times. Two different political ideologies but very great communicators of their ideas. Obama would have been only the 7th President to address Notre Dame and Regan 5. Very inspirational to many American people. Both are great joke tellers, love sports, both in love with their supportive wives, their fathers were immigrants, and they knew very little about their fathers as they grew up. Also, they have ties to IL.

A politician's refusal to confiscate other people's money and redistribute it to those that don't earn any does not constitute "hate."

We don't even have a "President" now. I'm not sure of what we've got. A man whom I saw bowing to a Saudi King yesterday on the news....President Reagan would have never done that!

Dr.? What was that?

Recovery from the Great Depression didn't start until after WWII. So neither Hoover nor FDR deserve credit for that. Truman's scaling back of the New Deal, his spending reductions, and his tax reductions are what freed the private sector brought us the growth of the late 40's, 50's, and early 60's.

Wrong. Keynes was the first economist to advocate use of a GNP statistic. For the umpteenth time, you have failed to counter my arguments that GDP merely measures growth in government and consumer spending. Neither of which are the source of economic growth. Supply side theory states that lower tax rates yield higher revenues. And tax revenues doubled during Reagan's tenure. They also shot up after Kennedy and GWB cut taxes. So I've yet to see supply side theory discredited.

How good it would be to have a commander with a real Vision for the US people..... Oh how good it would be....

Reagan's economic record would have been far better without public spending and borrowing. Whenever government spends money, it deprives that same money from being used by the private sector. And because governments are not driven by competition or the profit motive, they have no incentive to cut costs or produce anything of real economic value. So the economy expands in SPITE of public spending and borrowing. Private hands are far more efficient than public ones.

We can't sit around wishing he were still here. We do need to pick up the baton and get back in the race, though. How far off the track we have gotten.

It's not hard to get nice, big, fat GDP figures. All the government has to do is spend lots of money, build some really big aircraft carriers or some pyramids. Maybe dig some big ditches and fill them back in like FDR did. The true measure of an increase in economic growth and living standards is by looking at the productive capacity of the economy. And under Reagan, productivity experienced fantastic growth. As a result, all classes of society were far better off in 1989 than in 1981.

17-18:01 & 22:30-23:09

I'd be willing to swap him for Obama anytime

There is no contradiction whatsoever. The Democrats refused to slow the growth in domestic spending during Reagan's tenure. At the same time, Reagan doubled the size of the military in attempt to bankrupt the Soviets. Both were responsible for the deficit, but Reagan's deficit spending actually made sense while the Democrats' did not. Spending additional $ on social programs did not end the Cold War. Spending additional $ on the military did.

"You say WW2 cause this spectacular boom we saw." No I didn't. Where did I say that? We didn't come out of the Great Depression until AFTER WW2 when Truman slashed spending and taxes and scrapped much of the New Deal. Didn't I just SAY that? I guess you aren't bothering to read what I'm saying.

The early 90's recession was caused by the bursting of a real estate bubble and a savings and loan crisis. Bush's tax increases in 1990 didn't help much either.

Again, you are relying on Keynsian statistics like "GDP" as if that is somehow a measure of prosperity. All GDP does is measure how much money the government and the private sector is spending. It doesn't measure investment and it doesn't measure productivity growth. Again, according to your logic, if a president spent $5 trillion on pyramid construction, which would cause GDP to go up 40%, that would be 40% "economic growth" according to you.

Back when Catholics were proud of what ND stood for. Now they are a platform or Pro-Choicers. Sad.

Of course GDP shot up between 1933 and 1940 because the government was spending boatloads of money. Once again, you fail to counter my argument that gross domestic product is not an accurate measure of economic growth. It merely measures how much money is being SPENT. According to this logic, having a world war would be the absolute best way to have economic growth. We could build ships and planes and aircraft carriers galore and, according to your logic, that would be economic prosperity.

inflation kills wealth, tax on everyone as your dollar is worth less. that's a good thing? i am for not tweaking the numbers...not nationalizing the housing industry to create a house of cards and a house of cards industry (all began with gov't intervention and mandates, then the market reacted and adapted...). Affirmative action?

hilarious moment at 7:15

what "growth" are you speaking of? growth of government? if so, i think your estimates are low for FDR, LBJ, and the misery metric of Jimmy (put on your sweater) Carter. disgraceful.