What was reagan agenda

After an inconclusive telephone conversation with Shultz, Reagan instead chose Alexander Haig, who had been recommended by former President Richard M. Nixon, whom Haig had served as chief of staff in the final troubled days of Nixon's presidency. Weinberger was given an important consolation prize as secretary of Defense, in which he would become influential. Other appointees, however, were less familiar to Reagan.

Reagan gave an important signal of his practical nature—and his inability to hold grudges—in choosing James A. Baker had been a key member of President Ford's political team in when it beat back the Reagan challenge; he had managed George H. Bush's campaign against Reagan in But Reagan shared the apprehension of his closest aide Michael Deaver and his political consultant Stuart K.

Spencer that Meese lacked the organizational skills needed for the job: he instead gave Meese the post of White House counsellor and designated Deaver as Baker's assistant. One of Deaver's main jobs was maintaining daily liaison with Nancy Reagan. Baker, Deaver, and Meese, sometimes called the Trio, proved a talented team. They were well suited to Reagan, who preferred to delegate much of the day-to-day issues to his staff and focus on selling his economic program to the American people and Congress.

While he was sometimes criticized for being uninformed, Reagan had a grasp of the issues most important to them and, as his pollster Richard Wirthlin noted, a sure sense of the sentiments of his fellow Americans.

He was also willing to make decisions. Reagan and his advisers, particularly Baker, made the economy their first priority from the outset. They were helped in this when Iran released the Americans held hostage in Tehran as Reagan was taking the oath of office.

Had they not done so, Meese later observed, Reagan would necessarily have been preoccupied with this issue in his early weeks in office. Instead, Reagan and his team were free to concentrate on getting their economic plan through the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives. To win in the House, they needed every Republican vote and the defection of conservative, mostly southern Democrats—organized in a caucus called "The Boll Weevils" —who found it politically difficult to oppose the new President because Reagan had carried their districts by large margins.

Reagan's economic program had two major components: tax reductions and budget cuts, which took center stage, and monetary policy, which was as important but held a lower profile. He and his team confidently predicted that these actions would stimulate economic productivity. But the budget cuts, while receiving huge media attention, were from the start peripheral as they targeted only a small percentage of federal spending, mainly Great Society-era programs designed to widen the nation's social welfare net.

Reagan was simultaneously proposing massive increases in defense spending. He also followed the advice of David Stockman, his director of the Office of Management and Budget, to avoid reforming entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare that were the largest components of the budget. The budgets of these politically entrenched programs were determined by complex formulas written into the laws creating them.

Trying to cutback these programs presented an enormous political challenge, as Reagan learned when the Senate unanimously rebuffed an early attempt to change the Social Security rules.

In truth, Reagan had little interest in overturning such popular programs. As he made clear in his diaries, released nearly two decades after his presidency, Reagan's aim was to whittle away at Lyndon Johnson's Great Society while leaving Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal largely intact.

Reagan's tax and budget proposals were nonetheless controversial. Cutting programs designed to help the poor, liberals argued, placed those Americans at even greater risk. Critics from across the political spectrum warned that the combination of large tax cuts, minimal budget cuts, and increased defense spending was a recipe for an unbalanced federal budget and a larger national debt.

Reagan's advisers, believers in supply-side economics, responded that the economic recovery engendered by Reagan's tax and budget cuts would expand the tax base and eventually achieve a balanced budget. But this outcome assumed that Congress would make the spending cuts that Reagan had proposed. Instead, Congress enacted most of the tax cuts but made a "Christmas tree" out of the budget bill. It came as a surprise to Reagan that Republican members of Congress loaded up the budget bill with pet spending projects as readily as Democrats did.

The budget would have been out of balance even if the cuts proposed by Reagan had been enacted. As it turned out, the combination of lost tax revenues and higher spending sent the deficit ballooning.

Monetary policies, a key to the nation's economic health, had a lower profile early in the Reagan years. They were the domains of the Federal Reserve, which could act without presidential or congressional approval. Chairman of the Federal Reserve Paul Volcker, a Carter appointee who quickly won Reagan's confidence, aimed to bring inflation under control by tightening the nation's money supply.

The result was higher interest rates for borrowing money, which squeezed small businesses and middle-class Americans. Volcker believed that this painful, economic medicine was necessary to break the back of inflation. As Congress debated Reagan's tax and budget proposals—their passage still in doubt—tragedy nearly struck. After a speech at a Washington, D. At first, Reagan did not realize he had been shot and thought his ribs had been broken when he was hurled into the presidential limousine.

Reagan's press secretary, James Brady, was permanently injured with a bullet to the brain; a Secret Service agent and District police officer were also wounded. Secret Service agents diverted the presidential limousine that was en route to the White House to a hospital, a move that probably saved Reagan's life.

Reagan, gasping for breath but ever the trouper, walked into the hospital, then collapsed. Later he won the plaudits of the nation when his jokes on the operating table were relayed to the public, including a quip to an anxious Nancy Reagan, "Honey, I forgot to duck. The doctors appreciated Reagan's humor, but they were not laughing. The bullet had missed Reagan's heart by less than an inch.

Americans responded to Reagan's gallantry with an outpouring of support that helped the White House and its congressional supporters rally support for passage of the administration's tax and budget cuts. Of course, Reagan's program did not pass merely out of sympathy. Polls showed that the tax cuts were popular with voters, and the White House team, led by Baker, moved deftly to maximize its political advantage.

Reagan provided an added incentive for the Boll Weevil Democrats in the House by promising not to campaign in the mid-term election against any Democrat who voted for both his tax and budget bills. After compromises that slightly lessened the tax cuts and restored some of the proposed budget cuts, Congress quickly passed both bills. The heart of Reagan's economic program was now in place. He had obtained a percent reduction in taxes over three years.

The controllers had called an illegal strike, threatening to bring the nation's air traffic to a standstill. Even though PATCO had been one of the few labor unions to support him for President in , Reagan fired the strikers when they defied a back-to-work order. This left traffic control of the nation's skies in the hands of managerial staff, a few loyal controllers, and new hires. Some critics predicted a rash of dire accidents, but this did not happen and Reagan emerged from the controversy with the reputation of a strong leader who was able to make tough decisions.

Firing the PATCO strikers also sent a clear message to corporate America, which was encouraged to bargain more firmly with organized labor and hold down wages that had skyrocketed in the inflationary decade of the s.

Reagan won the early victories that he and his advisers desired, but the momentum they generated proved difficult to sustain. The weakness of the economy was the principal reason. Even before Reagan's economic program was signed into law, the Federal Reserve had identified the loose monetary policies that had led to what economists called "The Great Inflation" of the s as Public Enemy No.

When the Fed under Paul Volcker tightened interest rates to curb inflation, the economy plunged into recession and Reagan's popularity dipped with it. He reached a low-point—below what he would experience during the Iran-Contra scandal—in January when a Gallup survey gave Reagan an approval rating of 35 percent.

Given the monetary circumstances Reagan inherited, it is unlikely that a recession could have been avoided. But the Reagan tax bill worsened the deficit. Reagan's prediction that the tax cuts would increase revenues missed the mark, at least during the recession. Unemployment rose to 11 percent, and Reagan was often picketed when he campaigned for Republican candidates in the midterm elections. Leading Republicans, including Senate leader Howard Baker, urged Reagan to break with the Federal Reserve, but he refused to do so, believing that tight interest rates would eventually work.

Over time, despite the human costs of the recession, the Fed's policies did work. Tight money and reduced inflation laid the basis for a boom that began in and was still going when Reagan left the White House in Once the economy turned upwards, Reagan chided his critics, saying "They don't call it Reaganomics anymore.

The President stopped talking about balancing the budget and in supported the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act TEFRA , a measure presented as a tax reform bill that was also a tax increase. In , he supported another tax increase, again packaged as reform. On another fiscal front, after failing in an aborted attempt to reduce some Social Security benefits, Reagan teamed with House Speaker Tip O'Neill to bring spiraling Social Security costs under control. Reagan appointed a commission, headed by Alan Greenspan, on which O'Neill and Senate leader Baker also had appointees, that came up with a monumental compromise that slightly raised the retirement age, boosted payroll taxes, and taxed the benefits of high-end recipients for the first time.

Reagan's problems in and were not limited to the economy. Secretary of the Interior James Watt rankled environmentalists who found his opposition to federal environmental protections unacceptable. Watt declared that "We will mine more, drill more, cut more timber" and proposed to reduce federal funding for urban parks, lease federal lands off the California coast for oil and gas exploration, sell federal land to pay off the deficit, and give states the right to regulate environmentally hazardous strip-mining.

Environmental groups opposed Watt's proposals, almost all of which died on the vine or were blocked by Congress. Roosevelt Harry S. Truman Dwight D.

Eisenhower John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Bush Bill Clinton George W. Help inform the discussion Support the Miller Center. University of Virginia Miller Center. Breadcrumb U. January 20, Fifty-two American hostages held in Iran since Nov…. Reagan is inaugurated as the fortieth President of the United States. February 18, March 10, Reagan sends budget to Congress.

March 30, Reagan is shot in the chest by John Warnock Hinckley Jr. April 11, Reagan leaves the hospital after recovering from a gunshot wound. April 24, Soviet grain embargo lifted. Reagan lifts a grain embargo imposed on Soviet Union by President Carter. August 5, Reagan dismisses strikers. Reagan vs. August 13, Reagan signs a tax cut into law.

October 2, November 18, Negotiating with Soviet Union. December 28, January 26, Reagan delivers State of the Union. Reagan addresses Parliament. June 11, Reagan visits West Berlin. June 30, September 3, January 5, Reagan signs into law a five cents per gallon gasoline tax increase. January 25, March 23, Strategic Defense Initiative. April 20, Social Security reform becomes law.

June 18, Volcker heads Federal Reserve. July 1, The final phase of the tax cut goes into effect. October 23, Suicide bombers attack Lebanon. Marines in the capital city of Lebanon, Beirut, are attacked by suicide bombers. Bombing of Lebanon Barracks On October 23, , suicide bombers crashed a truck bearing more than 2, pounds of explosives through protective barricades at U.

October 25, Reagan urges deficit reduction. April 30, August 22, The Republican Party re-nominates Reagan and Bush for presidential election. September 21, The pair had two children, Patricia, and Ronald. During World War II , Reagan was disqualified from combat duty due to poor eyesight and spent his time in the Army making training films. In his younger years, Ronald Reagan was a member of the Democratic Party and campaigned for Democratic candidates; however, his views grew more conservative over time, and in the early s he officially became a Republican.

In , Reagan stepped into the national political spotlight when he gave a well-received televised speech for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater , a prominent conservative. Reagan was reelected to a second term in Reagan won the election by an electoral margin of and captured almost 51 percent of the popular vote.

At age 69, he was the oldest person elected to the U. Ronald Reagan was sworn into office on January 20, The first lady wore designer fashions, hosted numerous state dinners and oversaw a major redecoration of the White House. Just over two months after his inauguration, on March 30, , Reagan survived an assassination attempt by John Hinckley Jr. He also advocated for increases in military spending, reductions in certain social programs and measures to deregulate business.

Critics maintained that his policies led to budget deficits and a more significant national debt; some also held that his economic programs favored the rich. Supreme Court. Also on the foreign affairs front, Reagan sent U.

Marines to Lebanon as part of an international peacekeeping force after Israel invaded that nation in June In October , suicide bombers attacked the Marine barracks in Beirut, killing Americans. That same month, Reagan ordered U. In addition to the problems in Lebanon and Grenada, the Reagan administration had to deal with an ongoing contentious relationship between the United States and Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi During his second term, Reagan forged a diplomatic relationship with the reform-minded Mikhail Gorbachev , who became leader of the Soviet Union in In , the Americans and Soviets signed a historic agreement to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear missiles.

Twenty-nine months later, Gorbachev allowed the people of Berlin to dismantle the wall. After leaving the White House, Reagan returned to Germany in September —just weeks before Germany was officially reunified—and took several symbolic swings with a hammer at a remaining chunk of the wall.

In November , Ronald Reagan was reelected in a landslide, defeating Walter Mondale and his running mate Geraldine Ferraro , the first female vice-presidential candidate from a major U. Reagan was given a state funeral in Washington, D.