Reagan Administration
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Headed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1989, the Reagan Administration was conservative, steadfastly anti-Communist, employed a foreign policy of “peace through strength,” and favored tax cuts and smaller government.
Reagan was an advocate of free markets and, upon taking office, believed that the American economy was hampered by excessive economic controls and misguided welfare programs enacted during the 1960s and 1970s. Taking office during a period of stagflation, Reagan said in his first inauguration speech, "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." His first act as president was to issue an executive order ending certain price controls. His supply-side economics policies, or "Reaganomics", achieved a 25% cut in the federal personal income tax, moderate deregulation and tax reform, which he believed would remove barriers to efficient economic activity. After a sharp recession, a long period of high economic growth without significant inflation ensued.
Despite Reagan's stated desire to cut spending, the size of government grew during his administration. Combined with large tax cuts, large budget deficits and an increased national debt resulted.
One of Reagan's most controversial early moves was to fire most of the nation's air traffic controllers who took part in an illegal strike. Reagan strengthened Social Security to make it solvent longer, took tough positions against crime, declared a renewed war on drugs, but was criticized for being slow to respond to the AIDS epidemic.
In foreign affairs, Reagan initially rejected détente and confronted the Soviet Union through a policy of "peace through strength," including increased military spending, firm foreign policies against the USSR and support for anti-communist groups around the world. Reagan later embraced the reformer Mikhail Gorbachev after he rose to power and together they peacefully ended the Cold War.
Some foreign interventions, such as the one in Lebanon, ended in failure, while others, such as the invasion of Grenada, were successful. Involvement in the Iran-Iraq War at times favored Iraq, believing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was less dangerous. The Administration also engaged in covert arms sales to Iran in order to fund anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua. The resulting Iran-Contra Affair became a scandal to which Reagan professed ignorance. A significant number of officials in the Reagan Administration were either convicted or forced to resign as a result of the scandal.
However, by the end of the Reagan presidency, a high level of public approval (64% of the nation) indicated that the administration had recovered its image among the American public due to the perceived restoration of America's power, prosperity and national pride.
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[edit] Presidency
Reagan's presidency began in quite a historic way. The first major event happened just 30 minutes into his presidency on January 20, 1981. As he was giving his inaugural address, 52 Americans held hostage in Iran for the previous 444 days were released.
[edit] Assassination attempt
On March 30, 1981, 69 days into his Presidency, while leaving the Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC, President Reagan, Press Secretary James Brady, a Secret Service agent, and MPDC officer Thomas Delehanty were shot by John Hinckley, Jr. Shortly before surgery to remove the bullet from his chest (which barely missed his heart) he remarked to his surgeons, "I hope you're all Republicans," [1] and to his wife Nancy he jokingly commented, "Honey, I forgot to duck." Apparently he was quoting a remark made by boxer Jack Dempsey in 1926 explaining his loss of his heavyweight championship. After Dempsey lost to Gene Tunney, his wife Estelle Taylor asked him "What happened?" His reply was "Honey, I forgot to duck." Reagan often creatively quoted such witticisms.
[edit] Positions
As a politician and as President, he portrayed himself as being:
- conservative
- anti-communist
- in favor of tax cuts
- in favor of smaller government (with the exclusion of the military)
- in favor of removing regulations on corporations
- in favor of the use of force to protect U.S. interests
- tried to abolish the Small Business Administration
- zero tolerance on crime
[edit] Policies and decisions
He is credited with:
- increasing spending on national defense and diplomacy which contributed to the end of the Cold War
- deploying U.S. Pershing II missiles in West Germany in response to the Soviet stationing of SS-20 missiles near Europe
- negotiating the INF Treaty to substantially reduce nuclear arms and initiating negotiations with the Soviet Union for the treaty that would later be known as START I
- proposing the Strategic Defense Initiative, a controversial plan to develop a missile defense system
- Embracing the reformer Mikhail Gorbachev and peacefully ending the Cold War
- re-appointing monetarists Paul Volcker and (later) Alan Greenspan to be chairmen of the Federal Reserve, ending the high inflation that damaged the economy under his predecessors Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford
- lowering tax rates significantly (under Reagan, the top personal tax bracket dropped from 70% to 28% in 7 years [2]) and leading a major reform of the tax system
- providing arms and other support to anti-communist groups such as the Contras and the mujahideen
- selling arms to foreign allies such as Taiwan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq (see Iran-Iraq War)
- greatly escalating the "war on drugs"
- ordering the April 14, 1986 bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi in retaliation for an April 5 bombing of a West Berlin nightclub frequented by U.S. servicemen, in which the Libyan government was deemed complicit
- signing the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 which compensated victims of the Japanese American Internment during World War II
- firing air traffic controllers when they illegally went on strike
[edit] Major legislation approved
- Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981
- Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982
- Social Security Amendments of 1983
- Tax Reform Act of 1986
- Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986
- Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986
[edit] Administration and Cabinet
[edit] Supreme Court appointments
Reagan nominated the following jurists to the Supreme Court of the United States:
- Sandra Day O'Connor – 1981, making Reagan the first President to appoint a woman to the Supreme Court
- William Rehnquist – Chief Justice, 1986 (an associate justice since 1972)
- Antonin Scalia – 1986
- Robert Bork – 1987 (rejected by Senate)
- Douglas Ginsburg – 1987 (withdrawn)
- Anthony M. Kennedy – 1988...........
[edit] Domestic Policy
[edit] Reaganomics
Part of President Reagan's first term in office focused on reviving an inherited economy exhibiting stagflation, a high rate of inflation combined with an economic recession. Partially based on supply-side economics (derided by opponents as "trickle down economics"), Reagan's policies sought to stimulate the economy with large across-the-board tax cuts. George H. W. Bush had called Reagan's economic ideas "voodoo economics" during the Republican primary campaign, prior to becoming his running mate. The tax cuts were to be coupled with commensurate reductions in social welfare spending; it was also anticipated that economic growth would offset projected revenue losses from lower marginal tax rates.
After less than two years in office, Reagan rolled back a large portion of his corporate income tax cuts. Not only did Reagan retreat from proposed cuts in the Social Security budget, but he also appointed the Greenspan Commission which resolved the solvency crisis through reforms including acceleration of previously-enacted increases in the payroll tax. Although Reagan achieved a marginal reduction in the rate of expansion of government spending, his overall fiscal policy was expansionary. Social programs grew apace at the behest of the Democrat-controlled Congress. Reagan's fiscal policies soon became known as "Reaganomics", a nickname used by both his supporters and detractors.
President Reagan's tenure marked a time of economic prosperity for the middle class and wealthy in the United States. GDP growth recovered strongly after the 1982 recession. Unemployment peaked at over 11 percent in 1982 then dropped steadily, and inflation dropped even more significantly & wages fell. This economic growth generated greater tax revenue, although the new revenue did not cover an increased federal budget that included the military buildup and expansions of social programs, in violation of the doctrine of fiscal conservatism. The result was greater deficit spending and a dramatic increase in the national debt, which tripled in unadjusted dollar terms during Reagan's presidency. The U.S. trade deficit expanded significantly, particularly with buoyant Japan.
There is disagreement over how much Reagan's policies contributed to the severe recession that took place in 1982, the strong economic expansion that began late in his first term and ran throughout his second term, and the inequal distribution of the benefits of economic growth among the rich and the poor.
[edit] Economy
As Reagan entered office the American economy faced the highest rate of inflation since 1947, and this was considered the nation's principal economic problem. Reagan was considered a small-government conservative and supported income tax cuts, cuts domestic government programs, and deregulation, but no one knew what concrete steps he meant to take, or whether the House, controlled by Democrats, would support him.
Reagan's first official act was to terminate oil price controls, a policy designed to boost America's domestic production and exploration of oil.[1]
In the summer of 1981, Reagan, backing up a pledge he made when the union threatened to strike, fired a majority of federal air traffic controllers (members of the PATCO union) when they went on an illegal strike. Since this union was one of only two unions to support Reagan in the prior election, this action proved to be a political coup.
A major focus of Reagan's first term was reviving the economy, which was plagued by a new phenomenon known as stagflation (a stagnant economy combined with high inflation). He fought double-digit inflation by supporting Federal Reserve Board chairman Paul Volcker's decision to tighten the money supply by dramatically hiking interest rates. This support was largely symbolic since Paul Volker was appointed by President Carter in 1979 to a 14 year term and federal law prevents political influence over the Federal Reserve. While successful at reducing inflation, this plunged the economy into its most severe recession since the Great Depression. The unemployment rate increased from 7.5% when Reagan took office to a peak of 10.8% in late 1982. By mid-1984, however, unemployment was back down to its early-1981 level, and continued to drift downward for the next five years, a period of strong economic growth. During the Reagan presidency, the inflation rate dropped from 13.6% in 1980 (President Carter's final year in office) to 4.1% by 1988, the economy added 16,753,000 jobs and the unemployment rate fell from 7.5% to 5.3%. In addition, the poverty rate fell from 14% to 12.8%.[2]
Reagan pursued a strategy of combining this tight-money policy with broad tax cuts designed to boost business investment (in Reagan's words: "Chicago school economics, supply-side economics, call it what you will — I noticed that it was even known as Reaganomics at one point until it started working...").[3] Ridiculed by George H.W. Bush as "voodoo," and others as "trickle-down," and "Reaganomics," he managed to push across-the-board tax cuts in 1981, although in 1982 and 1983 he signed tax increases.[4]
Reagan's 1981 income tax cuts, the largest in American history, were passed with bipartisan support by the Democratic-controlled House and Senate. Reagan's support for an increased defense budget also was supported by Congressional Democrats. These Democrats, however, were not so willing to go along with Reagan's proposed cuts in domestic programs. The resulting increase of the national budget deficit led Reagan and Congress to approve tax increases in 1982 and 1983.
The Tax Reform Act of 1986 both lowered tax rates and eliminated tax shelters and deductions. For some this caused taxes to go up, for others to go down, but the act was intentionally designed so that it would neither increase nor decrease tax federal revenue compared to previous baselines.
One of the Reagan Administration's cost-cutting moves was abolition of the U.S. Metric Board, established by President Gerald R. Ford, thereby ending the attempt to harmonize U.S. measurements with the majority of first world nations.
Alarmed by the growth in Social Security outlays, Reagan appointed a Social Security reform commission, headed by Alan Greenspan. This commission reached a bipartisan consensus on a two-part plan to slow the growth: raising the Social Security tax base by staged increases in the age required to begin receiving benefits (reflecting rising life expectancy); and increasing government revenues by accelerating a previously enacted (by Ronald Reagan) increase in the rates of social security payroll taxes.
In order to cover the federal budget deficit, the United States borrowed heavily both domestically and abroad, and by the end of Reagan's second term the national debt held by the public rose from 26% of Gross Domestic Product in 1980 to 41% in 1989, the highest level since 1963. By 1988, the debt totaled $2.6 trillion. The country owed more to foreigners than it was owed, and the United States moved from being the world's largest international creditor to the world's largest debtor nation. [3]
During Reagan's presidency, all economic groups saw their income rise in real terms, including the bottom quintile, whose income rose 6 percent (Bureau of the Census, 1996.) The increases were stronger for the middle class and wealthier Americans, as they benefitted from the growth of the stock market, tax cuts, and the increasingly high returns of college and post-graduate education. See also: Economic inequality.
Reagan wrote in his memoir "An American Life" that he was not trying to undo the New Deal. Instead, he said he was trying to undo Lyndon Johnson's Great Society welfare programs and misguided controls on the economy, unshackling the American economy.
[edit] Response to AIDS
Reagan's presidency saw the advent of HIV-AIDS as a widespread epidemic in the United States. Although AIDS was first identified in 1981, Reagan did not mention it publicly for several more years. Critics of Reagan typically state that he did not do so until 1987, but this claim is false, as he discussed funding for AIDS research in a press conference in 1985.[4] The death from AIDS of his friend Rock Hudson helped motivate Reagan to support more active measures to contain the spread of AIDS, although in retrospect those measures are still seen by Reagan's critics as inadequate.
Possibly in deference to the views of the powerful religious right, which saw AIDS as a disease limited to the gay male community and spread by immoral behavior, Reagan prevented his Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop, from speaking out about the epidemic. When in 1986 Reagan finally authorized Koop to issue a report on the epidemic, he expected it to be in line with conservative policies; instead, Koop's Surgeon General's Report on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome greatly emphasized the importance of a comprehensive AIDS education strategy, including widespread distribution of condoms, and rejected mandatory testing. This approach brought Koop into conflict with other administration officials such as Education Secretary William Bennett.
Social action groups such as ACT UP worked to raise awareness of the AIDS problem. In 1987, Reagan responded by appointing the Watkins Commission on AIDS, which was succeeded by a permanent advisory council, and subsequently (under the administration of President Clinton) by the "AIDS czar".
Many socially conservative commentators saw Reagan's handling of the AIDS crisis as a common sense approach to a problem they believed was caused by social immorality. Members of the gay and lesbian communities, and other people who had AIDS or knew someone who did, saw his policies as anything from politically motivated willful blindness to outright contempt for groups affected by the disease.
Regardless of the aesthetic merits (or lack thereof) of the administration's approach to the disease, discretionary spending by the Federal government on AIDS research programs for both prevention and treatment increased steadily during Reagan's two terms in office, and afterwards. [5]
[edit] Air traffic controllers
On August 5, 1981, Reagan fired 11,359 striking air traffic controllers who had ignored his order to return to work, notwithstanding the fact that the strike was illegal under federal law. Ironically, PATCO, the air traffic controllers union, had been one of the few unions that had supported Reagan over Carter in the election nine months previously. Reagan's handling of the strike proved to be a political coup for him when public opinion turned against the controllers and the union, who were perceived as being concerned more with money than with public safety.
The breaking of the strike also had a significant impact on labor-management relations in the private sector. Although private employers nominally had the right to permanently replace striking workers under the National Labor Relations Act, that option was rarely used prior to 1981, but much more frequently thereafter. Some, including Alan Greenspan, have credited Reagan's action restoring flexibility to the business environment that had prevented American companies from hiring and held back the economy.
[edit] "War on Drugs"
Reagan's policies in the "War on Drugs" emphasized imprisonment for drug offenders while cutting funding for addiction treatment. This resulted in a dramatic increase in the U.S. prison population[citation needed]. Critics charged that the policies did little to actually reduce the availability of drugs or crime on the street while resulting in a great financial and human cost for American society. Due to this policy and various cuts in spending for social programs during his Presidency, some critics regarded Reagan as indifferent to the needs of poor and minority citizens. Nevertheless, some surveys showed that illegal drug use among Americans declined significantly during Reagan's presidency, leading supporters to argue that the policies were successful.
[edit] The Judiciary
During his 1980 campaign, Reagan pledged that if given the opportunity, he would appoint the first female Supreme Court justice. That opportunity came in his first year in office when he nominated Sandra Day O'Connor to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Potter Stewart. In his second term, Reagan elevated William Rehnquist to succeed Warren Burger as chief justice and named Antonin Scalia to fill the vacant seat. All of these appointments were confirmed by the Senate with relative ease. However in 1987 Reagan lost a significant political battle when the Senate rejected the nomination of Robert Bork. Anthony Kennedy was eventually confirmed in his place.
Reagan also nominated a large number of judges to the United States district court and United States court of appeals benches: most of these nominations were not controversial, although a handful of candidates were singled out for criticism by civil rights advocates and other liberal critics, resulting in occasional confirmation fights.
Both his Supreme Court nominations and his lower court appointments were in line with Reagan's express philosophy that judges should interpret law as enacted and not "legislate from the bench". By the end of the 1980s, a conservative majority on the Supreme Court had put an end to the perceived "activist" trend begun under the leadership of Earl Warren. Critics pointed out that the conservatives justices were equally activist, but that their sympathies with corporate America. However, general adherence to the principle of stare decisis along with minority support, left most of the major landmark case decisions (such as Brown, Miranda, and Roe v. Wade) of the previous three decades still standing as binding precedent.
[edit] Abortion
As governor in 1970, Reagan signed into law California's liberalized abortion rights legislation, before Roe v. Wade was decided. However, he later took a strong stand against abortion. He published the book Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation, which described what Reagan saw as disrespect for life, promoted by the practice of abortion. Two of the three Supreme Court justices he selected, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, voted in a 5-4 decision to uphold Roe v. Wade, although it is likely that another of his nominees, Robert Bork, would not have.
[edit] Other matters
Although Reagan's second term was mostly noteworthy for matters related to foreign affairs, he supported significant pieces of legislation on domestic matters. In 1982, Reagan signed legislation reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act of 1965 for another 25 years, even though he had opposed such an extension during the 1980 campaign.[5] This extension added protections for blind, disabled, and illiterate voters.
Other significant legislation included the overhaul of the Internal Revenue Code in 1986, as well as the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 which compensated victims of the Japanese-American internment during World War II. Reagan also signed legislation authorizing the death penalty for offenses involving murder in the context of large-scale drug trafficking; wholesale reinstatement of the federal death penalty did not occur until the presidency of Bill Clinton.
In 1987 Reagan signed the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement with Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.
Milton Friedman has pointed to the number of pages added to the Federal Register each year as evidence of the anti-regulatory nature of Reagan's presidency.[6] The number of pages added to the Register each year declined sharply at the start of the Ronald Reagan presidency, breaking a steady and sharp increase since 1960. The increase in the number of pages added per year resumed an upward, though less steep, trend after Reagan left office.
The "war on drugs" during his presidency involved Nancy Reagan's high-profile "Just Say No" series of messages.
In 1983 and again in 1984, Reagan was heard to say -- by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir of Israel and by Simon Wiesenthal and Rabbi Martin Hier of Los Angeles -- that he personally filmed the Auschwitz death camps; he was in a film unit in Hollywood that processed raw footage for newsreels, but he was not in Europe during the war.[7]
[edit] Foreign Policy
[edit] Foreign Interventions
- Further information: Foreign Interventions of the Reagan Administration
[edit] The Arts
As Ronald and Nancy Reagan were both former actors and he had served as president of the Screen Actor's Guild, via a 1982 Executive Order, President Reagan established the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities. In each year of his presidency, Reagan increased funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. In a 1983 speech he declared, "We support the National Endowment for the Arts to stimulate excellence and make art more available to more of our people." [6]
[edit] The Oldest President
As Reagan was the oldest person to be inaugurated as president (age 69), and also the oldest person to hold the office (age 77), his health, although generally good, became a concern at times during his presidency. His age even became a topic of concern during his re-election campaign. In a debate on October 21, 1984 between Reagan and his opponent Walter Mondale, panelist Henry Trewhitt brought up how President Kennedy had to go for days on end without sleep during the Cuban Missile crisis. He then asked the President if he had any doubts about if or how he could function in a time of crisis, given his age. Without hesitation, Reagan remarked, "Not at all Mr. Trewhitt, and I want you to know I am not going to make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience." Walter Mondale years later said in an interview that he knew at that moment he had lost the election.
On July 13, 1985, Reagan underwent surgery to remove polyps from his colon, causing the first-ever invocation of the Acting President clause of the 25th Amendment. On January 5, 1987, Reagan underwent surgery for prostate cancer which caused further worries about his health, but which significantly raised the public awareness of this "silent killer."
[edit] See also
- Reagan administration scandals
- U.S. presidential election, 1976
- U.S. presidential election, 1980
- U.S. presidential election, 1984
- Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California
- October Surprise
- Iran-Contra Affair
- History of the United States (1980-1988)
- List of things named after Ronald Reagan
- 600-ship Navy
- Ronald Reagan on Wikiquote
Administration · Foreign policy · Reagan Doctrine · Foreign interventions · Scandals
