REPUBLICAN DOMINANCE AND ITS OPPONENTS CLASS AND SUMMARY NOTES
Republican Dominance and its Opponents 1981-1992
New Direction in Economic Policy
Ronald Reagan’s Personality:
o Relaxed
o Effective public speaker
o ‘Great communicator’ of politics
o Lacked a greed for power
Key Ideas and Policies:
o Loathing of taxation- disincentive
o Reducing ‘big government’
o Crime cuts
o Welfare payments decreasing
o Supply-side economics- low taxation and less govt regulation
o ‘Reaganomics’
o Didn’t want to completely get rid of social security and Medicare as it would be
political suicide
o Beginning to reverse the Great Society
Defeated Carter in the 1980 presidential election. Seemed more optimistic, decisive, and
likely to gain foreign support.
Effect of Reagan’s Policies:
o Reducing aid to the working poor
- Reduced the budget of 212 federal programmes
- Food stamps, student loans, child nutrition programmes
, REPUBLICAN DOMINANCE AND ITS OPPONENTS CLASS AND SUMMARY NOTES
-Reduced the level and range of benefits for ‘safety nets’- Aid to Families with
Dependent Children
- 1984- 13 million children living below the poverty line
o Benefitting the rich
- Tax rises named ‘revenue enhancements’
- Average income of the poorest decreased by $1,300 per annum
- Number of homeless people doubled
o Workers and their families
- Double-digit inflation
- 10% unemployment
- Only half of America’s families maintained their standard of living in the 1980s
Employment Rights and Deregulation
o Pro-business, anti-labour
o Opposed minimum wage and proposals to increase it
o Hostile to union
o Appointed over 400 conservatives to the judiciary- made it harder for minorities to
sue employers over discrimination
o Wanted to reduce regulations on industry and business
o Ensured that bodies like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration made
decision in favour of businesses
o Deregulation policies disadvantaged many workers and families
Congressional and Public Resistance
o Rewriting budgets and uncooperative over his aims to reduce ‘big govt’
o Overrode his veto of the 1987 Water Quality Control Act
o Left some programmes for the public- social security, Medicare, veterans’ benefits,
and Head Start
o Dept of Agriculture wanted to save money- replaced veg portion with ketchup and
pickle relish in federal-subsidised schools- ridiculed and dropped
Economic Successes
o Defence expenditure- good for defence and aerospace industrial areas e.g. West
Coast
o Tax Reform Bill 1986- simplified tax code, increased corporate tax and capital gains,
lowered top tax rate, raised bottom tax rate
o 1980-88: inflation fell from 13.5% to 4.7%, unemployment 7% to 5.2%, 16 million
new jobs created
o Led to budget deficit which caused future issues
Budget and Trade Deficits
o Failed to balance the budget
o ‘Defence is not a budget item’
o $2.6trillion debt under his leadership
o Congress passed the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficits Control Act 1985-
spending cuts