Reagan flashcards: Reagan presidency (1981-89)

Question 1

Social security reform bill 1983:

Answer 1

Delays linking payments of social security to inflation

Reagan inherited social security costs which were 21% of the federal budget (dwarfing military spending), growing 3.5% every year- issue that congress failed to tackle

Question 2

McKinney- Vento Homelessness Assistance Act 1987:

Answer 2

Provides federal money for federal homelessness shelters
Context: by 1990 over 220,000 Americans were homeless- growing issue (due to the shortage of available social housing)
The Reagan administration cut spending on social housing by 2/3s
By mid 1980s, no. of families eligible for low income/social housing but could not get any was 3.7 mill

Question 3

Family Support Act 1980:

Answer 3

Family only eligible for benefits if at least one parent works - workfare culture

Question 4

Leisure time:

Answer 4

During the period, leisure time under the Reagan administration dropped from 26 hours per week to 16 hours
- meant many single mothers couldn’t work full time

Question 5

Policies affecting minorities:

Answer 5

The Reagan administration withdrew 40% of funding for bilingual education
Reagan passed the Fair Housing Act of 1988, expanding the provisions of this to include protection of those with disabilities and families with children

in the first 6 months of Reagan’s presidency, the Civil Rights division of the Justice Department filed 5 racial discrimination lawsuits. His abandonment of busing children to various schools as something particularly harmful to black and hispanic americans.

Some people have also accused him of ignoring the AIDS epidemic until his friend, actor Rock Hudson died of it.

Question 6

Job Training Partnership Act 1982:

Answer 6

Shifting job training from federal to state level (part of Reagan’s New Federalist approach)
programs to prepare youth and unskilled adults for entry into the labor force and to provide job training to economically disadvantaged and other individuals facing serious barriers to employment.

Question 7

Reaganomics policies:

Answer 7

ERTA 1981
OBRA 1981
TEFRA 1982
COBRA 1986
Tax Reform Act 1986

Many of Regan’s policies continued into the Bush and then Clinton administrations (both of them promising to keep taxes low etc)

Question 8

Abortion:

Answer 8

1988 Operation Rescue: allowed abortion protestors to sit and protest outside of abortion clinics

Question 9

Women:

Answer 9

1981: Sandra Day O’Connor appointed to SCOTUS= first female justice
The National Initiative Programme sought to aid women in business
The Fifty States project encouraged state governors to review codes and regulations that discriminated against women
Reagan removed the Equal Rights Amendment from the 1980 campaign platform
Plus the lack of support from his administration in minimum wage disproportionately affected women- 1990 women earnt 72% of men’s wages

Question 10

Iran Contra Affair (1985-87):

Answer 10

Dented his popularity and leadership, with his approval rating falling from 67% to 46%

Question 11

ERTA 1981:

Answer 11

Marginal cut tax of 23%
Slashed the top tax bracket from 70% to 50%
Slashed the lowest tax bracket from 14% to 11%
This tax cut disproportionately benefitted the wealthy

Question 12

OBRA 1981:

Answer 12

Cuts made under the OBRA fell mainly on federal spending on the poorest in society, capping benefits and reducing eligibility
$255 billion in spending cuts over 5 years
Including $22 billion in welfare spending

OBRA altered the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) programme. - impacting the benefits system and consequently welfare

Question 13

The economy:

Answer 13

GNP expanded by 30% from 1982-89, with inflation falling from 10.3% to 4.8%

From 1987, the financial crash- in part a result of deregulation- led to the collapse of the stock market and most savings and loans institutions

Reagan’s policies created a huge national debt of over $2.6 trillion, failure of the tax base to broaden sufficiently to compensate
The Reagan administration was reluctant to cut major sections of the welfare budget which were popular with voters e.g Medicare and Social Security

Question 14

Tax Reform Act 1986:

Answer 14

Comprehensive rearrangement of the taxation system: cut the number of brackets from 14 to 2

1986 Tax Reform Act effectively removed the working poor from federal income taxation, and the expansion of Earned Income Tax Credit reached 19 million people

Question 15

Government intervention:

Answer 15

Government assistance for corporations and agribusinesses amounted to $80 billion by the end of the first term

40 states signed onto ‘welfare to workfare’ schemes

Question 16

Debt and the budget:

Answer 16

Reagan inherited social security costs which were 21% of the federal budget (dwarfing military spending), growing 3.5% every year- issue that congress failed to tackle

Question 17

New Federalist approach:

Answer 17

New federalist approach- devolving control on certain programmes to state governments, proposing federal government retain control over medicare and then state gain control over two programmes most typically associated with welfare distribution- food stamps and child

Question 18

White House:

Answer 18

Cut travel costs for White House staff by 15-20% within the first couple of weeks of his first term

created a federal strike force to combat the government fraud and waste that had saved $2 billion in sixth months and replaced federal agencies with private sector ones and federal employees with volunteers. He failed to control the overall rising federal debt.

Question 19

Welfare spending:

Answer 19

Under Reagan spending on Medicare rose from 1.4% of the budget to 10%

Between 1980 and 1987, the average mortgage debt increased by 30% and the rate of foreclosure quadrupled

Question 20

TEFRA 1982:

Answer 20

Excise taxes on cigarettes were temporarily doubled, and excise taxes on telephone service temporarily tripled, in TEFRA

Between summer 1981 and summer 1982, tax revenue fell by about 6% in real terms, caused by the dual effects of the economy dipping back into recession- TEFRA was a consequence of this

Question 21

Bipartisanship:

Answer 21

Reagan worked with a Democratic Congress to pass comprehensive only had to win the support of 26% of the Democrats to pass its legislation, which made pushing through the budget and tax bills easier immigration and tax reforms- working with Tip O’Neil speaker of the house (democrat)

Question 22

Executive orders:

Answer 22

Executive Order setting up the President’s economic policy advisory board 1981, 1981 Executive Order setting up the President’s commision on housing

Question 23

TV and sponsors:

Answer 23

However the Reagan-Carter debate broke through this with 80.6 mill viewers. The 1984 debates drew 67.5 mill, 1988 65.1 mill, 1992 69.9 mill and in 1996 only 36.3 mill

1984 LA Olympics had official sponsors: McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Samsung