America -1.5 Reagan

Question 1

reasons why reaganomics was successful

Answer 1

• cut the federal deficit by 3%
• the Economic Recovery Tax Act created personal and business tax reduction
• deregulation
• planned control of the money supply to keep inflation down. between 1979-83, inflation decreased by 5.1%

Question 2

reasons why reaganomics was unsuccessful

Answer 2

• Federal Reserve Board put tighter restrictions on the money supply but these weren’t lifted when unemployment rose leading to rising interest rates. This hurt the car industry which bought supplies with long pay backs
• unemployment increased by 2.5% 1980-83
• unemployment statistics omitted those who were seen as unemployable (e.g. for drug use)
• tax in highest bracket dropped by 20%, lowest just 3%
• output per worker was 4.5 houses in 1983 vs 0.5 in 1987
• deficit rose by $149billion 1980-83
• the USA became a borrower nation as it wanted to cut taxes. In the long run this led to high interest rates.

Question 3

bush’s economic policy

Answer 3

• forced to raise taxes which he said he would never do

- harder as democrats were back as a majority in the house

Question 4

reasons why Big government was successful

Answer 4

• cut federal registrar, removing 23,000 pages
• federal defence strike to help combat government waste and fraud
• replaced federal agencies with private sector ones
• rise of imports gave people more choose and spurred Japanese investment. This meant that the American government had to invest less.

Question 5

reasons why big government was unsuccessful

Answer 5

• there is an argument that Reagan didn’t start it. Carter had already deregulated airlines and drafted bills to do the same with trucking
• rise of conglomerates. Big companies bought smaller ones out
• businesses set their own standards (reduction in leisure time by 10 hours)
• S&L crisis. they usually made safe investments, but competition with big businesses led to riskier investments, meaning they lost lots of Money
• Reagan didn’t intervene to affect markets, meaning work trade shifted and making imports cheaper. Textiles suffered
• congress blocked a lot of deregulation plans (e.g. transition of road building from federal to state gov) and encouraged Reagan to pass the Food Security Act. the state was reluctant to take over previously fed funded services

Question 6

Bush’s policies on big government

Answer 6

• people were less keen at this point as people were seeing the negative effects. Many deregulated businesses were more interested in personal benefit.
• flights were tightly packed, flew to less places and had high prices
• fed withdrawal from state projects often led to the collapse of projects due to a lack of funding. Poor Rural areas suffered most

Question 7

reasons why Reagan’s social policies were successful

Answer 7

• 1947, 42 states were running workfare programmes making it widespread
• in 1970, there were almost 2.4 million low income homes available
• 1978-88, federal spending on low income homes increased by $23 billion
• 1987 McKinney Act set up federal emergency funds for the homeless (medical care and education)
• 1982 funding for AIDS research
• people working in new industries like Defence did well

Question 8

reasons why Reagan’s social policies were unsuccessful in the workplace

Answer 8

• emphasised workfare not welfare. this made it hard for single mothers who had to pay for childcare
• removal of working regulations meant that many people’s working conditions deteriorated
• stress on productivity meant many women weren’t hired as they would take time off for pregnancy

Question 9

reasons why Reagan’s social policies were unsuccessful in a general sense

Answer 9

• unwilling to extend CR legislation. 1982 Crisis magazine by the NAACP said that he was hindering black civil vivil rights progress
• withdrew funding from busing students leading to segregated schooling
• moderate support for gay rights. sone say he ignored it until his friend Rock Hudson died.
• many farms failed as 15% of farmers were getting 60% of subsidy funding
• bicoastal boom whereby the population sifted to suburban living. these areas had 2.5% less unemployment and 60% of the jobs
• people working in older industries suffered (e.g. Cleveland had 20% living below the poverty line).

Question 10

reasons why Reagan’s did revitalise the presidency

Answer 10

• even if he didn’t change legislation that much, he changed the view of the pubic, media and political parties
• the president was no longer seen as awkward, having an approval eating of 60% vs Carter’s 28%
• brought business back into politics. More sponsorship meant people could spend longer on air and have slicker campaigns
• the Christian Right became more outspoken (abortion and teenage pregnancies)
• public image was very positive. unlike Carter who was humiliated, Reagan was seen as sincere and capable. even throughout the Iran-Contra scandal people blamed his operation for confusing him
• united Republicans and Democrats under a conservative coalition banner

Question 11

reasons why Reagan did not revitalise the presidency

Answer 11

• though religious prayer should be integrated into school life, yet didn’t legislate on it. same with abortion
• in the long term he didn’t. Bush had more Democrats in the Senate making it harder to pass legislation
• some argue it wasn’t Reagan but a reaction to Democratic mistakes. they were divided over candidates and wasn’t until 1984 that they regrouped
• arguably people became less involved with the presidency as presidential debate viewers dropped from 80.6 million in 1970 to 36.3 million in 1996

Question 12

what did Reagan want to achieve with the economy?

Answer 12

• cutting the federal deficit
• personal and business tax reductions
• deregulation
• planned control of the money supply

Question 13

why did Reagan want to reduce big government?

Answer 13

-the nation had become suspicious of government intervention and therefore new federalist policies would reduce government involvement in their lives

Question 14

new right thinking

Answer 14

• rejected many assumptions in place since the New Deal
• he united republicans and democrats under a conservative coalition banner. this is what allowed him to push through legislation (e.g. 1981)
• people thought the welfare system was being exploited but they also thought that the poor needed more help