From Oct. 28, 1980, in Cleveland, here is part 9 of the Carter-Reagan Presidential Debate, as taped from WJKW, CBS. Amazing how things have changed…and yet stayed the same…in almost 30 years!!!
Lee Edwards of the Heritage Foundation wrote an excellent article on Ronald Reagan and the events that transpired during the Reagan administration, and I wanted to share it with you. Here is the second portion:
Reagan needed every bit of this help. Internally, the nation faced a multitude of serious economic problems — double-digit inflation, high unemployment and a prime interest rate of 21.5 percent, the highest since the Civil War. Overseas problems had also proliferated — the energy crisis, the red-tinged Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the unbalanced SALT II treaty, the brutal Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, falling dominos in Africa, the American hostages in Iran. The Vietnam syndrome that permeated and obstructed U.S. foreign policy was reinforced by Carter’s maladroit actions and the malaise that he, not the American people, produced.
The new president and his top advisers were well aware that they had to act, and quickly. In presidential politics, as in the 100-yard dash, a quick start is everything.
Richard Wirthlin, the president’s pollster, had developed “a strategic outline of initial actions” to be taken during the administration’s first 180 days — from the inauguration until early August, when Congress usually recessed for a summer vacation.[i] The plan was based in large part on an address that Reagan had delivered the previous September before the International Business Council of Chicago. The candidate had proposed: strictly controlling the rate of growth of government spending, reducing personal income tax rates, revising government regulations, establishing a stable monetary policy, and following a consistent national economic policy.
Such a strategy seems obvious, but Democrats attacked it with abandon and, typically, big business mouthpieces like the National Association of Manufacturers complained because the plan didn’t cut business taxes enough. But research director Martin Anderson and the other numbers crunchers were content: they had produced a document (with projections through 1985) showing that Reagan could cut taxes, balance the budget and increase domestic growth if given the right kind of cooperation by Congress.[ii] The Wall Street Journal agreed, commenting that Reagan had “spelled out a prudent, gradual, responsible reordering of economic priorities.”[iii]
The Daily Hatch 