NORTH COAST TIMES E A G L E , AUGTEMBER 2001
regulation but encouraged greater competition by permitting
all banks to offer interest-bearing checking accounts and full
consumer services. A Banking Act of 1982 also gave new
investment and lending authority to saving institutions When
the airlines industry completed the deregulation also initiated by
Carter, Reagan officials pointed to increased competition, lower
fares and more flexible schedules. The President also acceler
ated Carter's deregulation of domestic oil prices and pipeline
routes, asked Congress to reduce the windfall profits tax and
cut funding for research on alternative fuel sources. In this spirit
Reagan approved a Congressional plan to allow states to raise
the speed limit on interstate freeways to 65 miles per hour in
1987.
As OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries) prices declined by 1982, many Americans welcomed
the return to a deregulated market But there were unforeseen
consequences to the Carter/Reagan policies When the Repub
lican President reduced the authority of the Occupational Safety
& Health Administration (OSHA) in 1981, union representatives
complained that the administration had abandoned American
warkers to excessive noise levels and lethal chemical exposure.
Deregulation of banking encouraged the offering of loan and
investment services by unqualified providers and resulted in the
bankruptcy of vulnerable savings & loan institutions. By 1987
cutthroat competition in the airlines industry had brought a wave
of bankruptcies and mergers, while the absence of coordinated
scheduling had produced flight delays and overcrowded skies
at peak periods. Beleaguered air traffic controllers complained
that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had not allocated
sufficient personnel and technology to deal with the increase in
domestic flights. Meanwhile, the restructuring of the telephone
industry encouraged the lowering of long-distance rates for the
affluent at the expense of increased costs for local service.
Despite Reagan's concern for free market economics,
the government continued agricultural price supports and the
President authorized the purchase of $2-billion of surplus milk
products Reagan also signed a 1985 farm bill appropriating
nearly $170-billion in income subsidies, price supports and food
stamps for the next five years. Rampant mortgage foreclosures
and bankruptcies among farmers, which reached their highest
level since 1946, played a role in prompting such spending by
a cost-conscious Congress and a conservative President when
farmers descended upon Washington in several protests. The
administration's greatest problem in curtailing federal controls,
however, came with its policy of eliminating "unnecessary"
environmental safeguards. Interior Secretary James G. Watt,
an enterprising Wyoming attorney, pursued pro-development
policies by leasing offshore oil drilling rights and proposing
timber sales in national park lands. Under intense criticism from
environmentalists and liberals, Watt resigned in 1983
The Reagan administration's coziness wth developers
and industrialists surfaced in a major scandal when Anne M
Burford, the administrator of the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), resigned amid Congressional investigations
into charges of unethical conduct in 1983. Congress accused
Burford of promoting "sweetheart" deals between the EPA and
some of the industries it regulated, but Reagan ordered the
administrator to not provide materials sought by a House sub
committee. When the full House cited Burford for contempt,
the Reagan Justice Department refused to prosecute. Neverthe
less, a jury convicted Rita M. Lavelle, former head of a "super
fund" program to clean up toxic waste dumps, of perjury and
obstruction of a Congressional investigation. In response to
abuses at the EPA, Congress strengthened the laws regarding
the handling of hazardous wastes, prohibiting the land disposal
of liquid and some solid materials. Reagan, moreover, agreed
to a $8.5-billion superfund for a five-year cleanup of toxic dumps
in 1986, although he refused to pursue controls on industrial
emissions until scientists completed more research on the
effects of "acid rain."
Buoyed by a cooperative Congress and supportive
electorate, Reagan cut domestic programs by $35-billion and
introduced welfare reform in 1981. Confining benefits to the
"truly needy," the President reduced allowable deductions and
tax breaks. Despite Reagan's conviction that welfare sapped
initiative and trapped recipients in impoverishment, poverty
remained a reflection of complex national economic forces.
By 1981,32 million Americans, or one-seventh of the nation,
had cash incomes lower than minimal standards established
by the federal government. Thirty-eight percent of these people
were children, while two/thirds of poor adults were women.
Eight million Americans, moreover, found themselves forced
into poverty between the energy crisis of 1979 and the end of
the 1981-1982 recession. Political and economic pressures
pushed the administration to address the problems of economic
deprivation. During the 1982 recession the President signed
a gas tax and highway jobs measure appropriating $71-billion
in transportation projects for the next four years Reagan also
referred the deteriorating Social Security situation to a Presi
dential commission and in 1983 supported a plan to revitalize
the troubled system By increasing payroll taxes on both
employers and employees, Social Security expanded its
outlays from $138-billion in 1981 to $200-billion in 1986.
Medicare spending, which amounted to $41-billion in 1981,
leaped to $74-billion in 1986. The President also persuaded
Congress to appropriate $1 7-billion for a drug enforcement
and education program in 1986
Although Reagan had won surprising support among
organized labor in 1980, he reacted strongly to a walkout of
government air traffic controllers during his first year in office
Firing the 12,000 striking technicians and dissolving their union,
the President ordered the FAA to use military controllers in their
place The strategy worked and appeared to symbolize manage
ment's harsh approach to labor in the Reagan economy. The
President, however, left the more complex question of illegal
alien labor to Congress. After years of squabbling the legislators
fashioned a compromise in the Immigration Act of 1986 The law
fined employers who knowingly hired illegal aliens but created
an amnesty program for millions of illegal immigrants (mainly
Mexican-Americans) who could prove their entry to the United
States before 1982. By 1988, 2 million of the nation's estimated
6 million illegal aliens had applied for amnesty under terms of
the legislation.
Reagan did not win approval for his entire political
agenda When the President asked for a "new federalism"
in his State of the Union message of 1982, Congress refused
to shift programs to the poorly funded states Neither did the
legislators respond to the President's proposal for tuition tax
credits for private school education, which liberals saw as a
means of undermining racial integration Nor did Congress
approve abolition of the departments of Energy and Education
Furthermore Congress failed to pass constitutional amendments
requiring a balanced budget, barring abortion, or permitting
school prayer. Yet the conservative administration won substan
tial victories. During 1978 the (Warren) Burger Supreme Court
had limited preferential treatment of minorities in education in
the Bakke case by prohibiting rigid admission quotas The
Reagan Justice Department happily responded by reducing
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BILL PLYMPTON, "REPUBLICAN GOTHIC"
affirmative action and school desegregation suits. The President
also expressed pleasure when the Equal Rights Amendment
(ERA) fell three states short of ratification in late 1982 and when
the House came 6 votes shy of reviving the measure early the
next year.
Despite Reagan's open conflict with feminists on such
issues as the ERA, legalized abortion and subsidized daycare,
the administration sought out conservative women such as
Elizabeth Dole (Secretary of Transportation), Margaret Heckler
(Secretary of Health&Human Services) and Jeane J. Kirkpatrick
(Ambassador to the United Nations). In his most dramatic move,
however, Reagan appointed conservative Judge Sandra Day
O'Connor in 1981 to become the first woman to sit on the
Supreme Court. Since O'Connor's record included qualified
support for a woman's right to abortion, conservatives such as
Reverend Falwell criticized the nomination. Yet Reagan moved
further toward establishing a conservative majority on the Court
when Chief Justice Warren Burger retired in 1986.The President
not only chose Antonin Scalia, a conservative academic legalist,
to fill the vacancy, but elevated William Rehnquist, the Court's
most conservative member, to the presiding chair. Reagan
anticipated further influence on the Court when he selected
Appeals Court judge and constitutional scholar Robert H. Bork
to fill a third vacancy in 1987. But a grassroots campaign of
liberals, feminists and civil rights activists convinced the Senate
that Bork's strict interpretation of constitutional rights appeared
"extremist" and potentially disruptive of political stability. Forced
to abandon the nominee, Reagan ultimately settled on a less
abrasive conservative, Anthony M. Kennedy of California.
By 1984 a sharp drop in oil prices had eased inflation
and accelerated the economic recovery begun two years earlier
Voters who since the 1930s had identified the Democrats as the
party of prosperity now looked to the Republicans. 'We Brought
America Back," the White House proclaimed Meanwhile,
Democrats chose among three finalists in the Presidential race
Reverend Jesse Jackson's "Rainbow Coalition" attempted to link
those outside the Reagan constituency: feminists, racial minor
ities, the poor, and peace activists. Senator Gary Hart of
Colorado appealed to young urban professionals and focused
upon the technological nature of the new service economy.
But it was former Vice President Mondale who carried the
Democrats' traditional constituencies in labor, education and
the big cities and who faced Reagan in the 1984 general
election. Mondale's running mate was Representative Geraldine
A. Ferraro of New York, the first woman to be nominated for
national office by a major party.
Mondale and Ferraro were caught in the growing polar
ization between the affluent and poor By the 1980s the richest
5th of Americans absorbed over 41% of the national income
while the lowest 5th subsisted on 5%. Fearful of offending
middle-class voters, Mondale barely challenged Reagan's huge
military budget or social program cuts The candidate tried
to preserve the alliance of corporations, unions and big govern
ment that had defined the Democratic Party since World War 2
Yet corporate leadership had abandoned these ties and union
membership and bargaining power had suffered in an economy
decreasingly dependent on manufacturing In contrast, Repub
lican campaign committees outspent the Democrats 4 to 1 and
used capital-intensive techniques of campaigning such as media
advertising and sophisticated polling Reagan’s informality and
lack of pretension made him a believable communicator despite
a difficulty with nuance and detail
The result proved to be a stunning Republican victory.
With 59% of the popular vote, the President captured majorities
in every state but Mondale's Minnesota and the District of
Columbia. The Democrats tallied 90% among blacks, 65%
among Hispanics and 53% among those earning under $12,500
a year In contrast, Republicans scored 80% among evangelical
Christians, 72% among southern whites and 68% among those
earning over $50,000 a year. Most disturbing to the Democrats
however was Reagan's majority among voters between the ages
of 18 and 25. For these Americans Reagan and the Republicans
represented new economic opportunity and Mondale and the
Democrats stood for a tired status quo. Eligible voter participa
tion in the election slipped further to 52%.
Reagan campaigned on a revitalized sense of national
pride, contrasting American moral superiority to the 'Evil Empire'
of the Soviet Union. In his second inaugural the President called
the United States the "blessed land" of a "chosen people" and
predicted there were no limits to growth and progress. Jimmy
Carter had translated this moral imperative into a demand that
American allies like Chile and El Salvador adhere to higher
standards of human rights. But United Nations Ambassador
Kirkpatrick, a foreign affairs specialist from Georgetown
University, rejected this policy as naive and insisted in 1983 that
"authoritarian" dictatorships of the right were susceptible to
democratic change while "totalitarian" regimes of the left were
not. The Reagan administration held Soviet adventurism in the
developing nations responsible for "world terrorism" and most
global conflict. Consequently, by 1985 national security planners
adhered to an unofficial "Reagan Doctrine" in which the CIA
rebuilt its covert action capacity by assisting anticommunist
insurgencies across the world. During that year the President
persuaded Congress to lift the 1976 restrictions on CIA activity
in Angola and personally designated the UNITA recipients of an
$11-million military aid program for anti-government subversion,
thereby allying the United States with a similar South African
effort. The administration also supplied rebel armies in Afghan
istan, Cambodia, Ethiopia and Nicaragua.
Despite its insistence that communism contributed to
the worst human rights abuses, the Reagan administration faced
intense pressure from Congress when the white minority govern
ment of South Africa used violence against black demonstrators
in 1984 Protests against racial apartheid spread around the
United States. As American civil rights leaders led daily
demonstrations against apartheid at the South African embassy,
conservative Republicans embraced the campaign to improve
the party's image in the area of race relations The administra
tion responded with a policy of "constructive engagement" vtfiich
called for peaceful persuasion of an anticommunist ally rich in
strategic materials But Congressional Republicans saw this
as implicit support for the repressive South African regime
Only when the House passed legislation to impose sanctions
in 1985 did the President ban the sale of South African coins
and prohibit new bank loans and computer sales to Pretoria
The following year Congress banned imports of several South
African goods, suspended direct air travel and promised stricter
sanctions if apartheid continued. In a dramatic foreign policy
defeat, Reagan's veto of the measure was easily overridden in
both Houses.
The administration faced another challenge to its
support of anticommunist allies when the dictatorship of
Ferdinand E. Marcos of the Philippines fell in early 1986.
Under pressure from the United States, Marcos had called
for popular elections to be monitored by American observers.
Reagan first backed Marcos but Senator Richard Luger,
Republican Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, persuaded
the President to abandon his personal friend Following the vote,
the international election commission accused Marcos of wide
spread fraud and opposition candidate Corazon Aquino declared
herself President When Aquino won support from dissident
military leaders and millions of Filipinos demonstrating in the
streets. Marcos fled to Hawaii Not long after, the United States
escorted another ally, Haiti's Jean Claude Duvalier, to safety
in Europe after rioting broke out on Duvalier's impoverished
Caribbean island As relations with military dictatorships in
Chile and Paraguay cooled by 1986, Reagan announced that
the United States would encourage democratic movements
among nghtwing allies The followng year South Korean
students led massive street protests to accelerate a timetable
for national elections and the Reagan administration success
fully prevailed upon the dictatorship in Seoul to agree The State
Department opposed another dictator in 1988 when federal
prosecutors in Miami and Tampa indicted Panamanian strong
man General Manuel Antonio Nonega for international drug
trafficking But Nonega. a former CIA asset, resisted Washing
ton's attempts to use an embargo and other pressures to force
him from power
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