Reagan and his running mate, George Bush, easily defeated their Democratic opponents, Walter MONDALE and Geraldine FERRARO, in 1984, but the Democrats maintained control of Congress and the president offered fewer domestic initiatives during his second term. Partisan wrangling over what parts of the budget to cut in order to reduce the staggering federal deficit led to passage of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act (1985), which mandated automatic, across-the-board spending cuts over a period of years. The Supreme Court declared the automatic cuts unconstitutional in 1986, however, and repeated failure by the president and Congress to agree on budget reductions kept the deficit at record levels. Disputes over the control of trade policy also worsened the imbalance of imports over exports, which rose to $161 billion in 1987.
Tax reductions and defense spending, however, kept the economy booming. Reagan boosted defense spending 35 percent above the 1980 level, and in 1986 he secured congressional approval for a major INCOME TAX reform law that further cut taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals and also reduced by 6 million the number of poorer taxpayers.
At the end of Reagan's tenure the GOP could boast that his administration had helped create 16.5 million new jobs, bring down the unemployment rate to a 17-year low, cut double-digit inflation down to about 4 percent, and raise the gross national product by one-third. Democrats, on the other hand, could criticize "Reaganomics" for promoting prosperity at the expense of the poor and the nation's future well-being. The number of people below the poverty line rose by 8 million, and their lot was made worse by cuts of nearly $50 billion in social-welfare programs. Reductions in subsidized housing from $30 billion in 1981 to $7 billion in 1988 made HOMELESSNESS part of the national lexicon, and the number of Americans without any health-care insurance rose to 37 million. By borrowing rather than taxing to rearm, Reagan mortgaged the financial future. The cost of servicing the national debt rose from 8.9 percent of all federal outlays in 1980 to 14.8 percent in 1989. Moreover, persistent trade and budget deficits made the country a debtor nation for the first time since 1914.
During its eight years in office, the administration had a significant impact on the composition of the federal judiciary. President Reagan appointed three conservatives to the Supreme Court and elevated conservative William Rehnquist to the position of chief justice. Overall, he filled about half of the 700 federal judgeships, most of them with conservative appointees.
A major scandal of Reagan's second term was the IRAN-CONTRA AFFAIR, in which national security advisor John M. Poindexter, Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, and other administration officials were involved in a secret scheme to sell arms to Iran, diverting some of the proceeds to the contra rebels in Nicaragua. Investigation of this affair by Congress in 1987 led to the prosecution of Poindexter and North, and damaged the administration's image.
Ironically, developments in foreign affairs during Ronald Reagan's second term led this most anti-Communist of presidents into a new, harmonious relationship with the Soviet Union and to sign the first superpower treaty that actually reduced nuclear armaments. Soviet leader Mikhail GORBACHEV, determined to relax tensions with the West, met with Reagan in 1985 and 1986; in 1987 they signed the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, and in 1988 a triumphant Reagan traveled to Moscow for a fourth summit and further arms-reduction talks.
The Bush Administration
The remarkable reduction in cold-war tensions, combined with the promise of continued prosperity with no increase in taxes, carried Republicans George BUSH and Dan QUAYLE to victory over Democratic candidates Michael DUKAKIS and Lloyd BENTSEN in 1988. Lacking his predecessor's strong personal following and facing a Democratic-controlled Congress, Bush sought to govern in a more moderate, middle-of-the-road way than Reagan. The rapid demise of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989-90 and upheaval in the USSR in 1991 provided him with an opportunity to lessen international tensions and to reclaim the primacy of the United States in world affairs. Bush intervened militarily in Panama in 1989 to overthrow its president, Manuel NORIEGA. In mid-1990, responding to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait, he ordered more than 400,000 American troops to the Persian Gulf region to defend Saudi Arabia. When Iraqi troops refused to withdraw from Kuwait in January 1991, demanded by Bush in an ultimatum, he authorized a massive bombing, and then ground assault, on Iraq and its forces in Kuwait, and won a swift victory. (See PERSIAN GULF WAR.)
Decisive in acting abroad, Bush failed to evolve a domestic program that adequately addressed a persistent recession starting in 1990. That year, despite the recession, he and congressional leaders agreed to a deficit-reduction package that raised federal taxes, thereby breaking his "no new taxes" 1988 election campaign pledge. He also failed on his promise to be both "the environment president" and "the education president," and angered many women by nominating Clarence THOMAS to the Supreme Court and continuing to support him despite allegations of sexual harassment. Concerned about the economy and demanding change, many conservative Republicans backed political columnist Patrick J. Buchanan's effort to contest Bush's renomination while moderates rallied to the independent candidacy of H. Ross PEROT. Also focusing on the nation's economic woes and promising change, William Jefferson "Bill" CLINTON, governor of Arkansas, beat several rivals in the Democratic primaries and chose as his running mate Tennessee senator Albert GORE--like Clinton, a baby-boomer, a white Southern Baptist, and a moderate. Capitalizing on a slumping economy and increasing unemployment, the Clinton-Gore ticket won 43 percent of the highest voter turnout (55 percent) since 1976 and 370 electoral votes. The Republicans Bush and Quayle tallied just 37 percent of the popular vote and 168 electoral votes, while Perot garnered 19 percent.
The Clinton Administration
Despite the movement into Washington of new people with fresh ideas, the Clinton administration got off to a slow, unsteady start. Crises in Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia, and Russia forced the president to focus on the volatile, multipolar world of the post-cold war era. At the same time, Clinton backed down from his promise to prohibit discrimination against gays in the military and reneged on his pledge, for lack of revenue, to cut middle-class taxes. Defeated by Congress on his proposals to stimulate the economy, Clinton then won by the narrowest of margins a highly compromised federal budget plan to reduce the deficit. The president had more success in persuading Congress to enact family-leave, "motor voter" registration (see VOTER REGISTRATION), and campaign finance reform bills, to approve the NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT, and to consent to his nomination of Ruth Bader GINSBURG to the Supreme Court. Clinton's future effectiveness and reputation rested largely on the fate of his plans to reform the health-care system and to provide effective solutions to the problems of economic insecurity and social disorder haunting middle-class Americans.
Harvard Sitkoff
Bibliography:
General:
Ahlstrom, Sydney E., A Religious History of the American People (1972); Banner, Lois W., Women in Modern America, 2d ed. (1984); Barth, Gunther, Fleeting Moments: Nature and Culture in American History (1990); Blum, John M., et al., The National Experience: A History of the United States, 7th ed. (1989); Cohen, Warren I., ed., The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations, 4 vols. (1993); Curti, Merle Eugene, The Growth of American Thought, 3d ed. (1964; repr. 1981); Ferrell, Robert H., American Diplomacy, 3d ed. (1975); Garraty, J. A., The American Nation, 7th ed. (1991); Heilbroner, R. L., and Singer, Aaron, The Economic Transformation of America: 1600 to Present, 2d ed. (1984); Hofstadter, Richard, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It, 2d ed. (1973); Huckshorn, R. J., Political Parties in America, 2d ed. (1983); Morison, S. E., and Commager, H. S., The Growth of the American Republic, 2 vols., 7th ed. (1980).
To c.1860:
Bailyn, Bernard, The Peopling of British North America (1986); Boorstin, Daniel Joseph, The Americans: The National Experience (1965; repr. 1985); Elkins, Stanley, and McKitrick, Eric, The Age of Federalism (1993); Genovese, Eugene, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (1974).
From c.1860:
Biles, Roger, A New Deal for the American People (1991); Foner, Eric, Reconstruction (1988); Higham, John, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925, 2d ed. (1965; repr. 1988); Hodgson, Godfrey, America in Our Time (1976); Hofstadter, Richard, The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F. D. R. (1955); Leffler, Melvin, A Preponderance of Power (1992); Leuchtenburg, William E., Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1940 (1963); and In the Shadow of FDR: From Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan (1985); McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (1988); Nevins, Allan, Ordeal of the Union, 8 vols. (1947-71); Painter, Neil I., Standing at Armageddon: The United States 1877-1919 (1987); Preston, Daniel, Twentieth Century United States History (1992); Schlereth, Thomas J., Victorian America (1988); Schlossstein, Steven, The End of the American Century (1990); Sitkoff, Harvard, The Struggle for Black Equality, 1954-1992 (1993); Wiebe, R. H., The Search for Order, 1877-1920 (1967; repr. 1980); Winkler, Allan, Modern America (1991).
See also: AMERICAN ART AND ARCHITECTURE; AMERICAN LITERATURE; AMERICAN MUSIC; UNITED STATES.
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