President and Nancy Reagan with Prince Charles and Princess Diana in the Yellow Oval room. 11/9/85.

Ronald Reagan – The Presidential Years Part 1 of 4

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 12th portion:

Reagan’s most dramatic defeat came in 1987 when he nominated Judge Robert Bork to the Supreme Court.[xli] Bork’s confirmation became an ugly battle against liberal organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, the AFL-CIO, and People for the American Way. One analyst put the cost of the anti-Bork media campaign at $15 million.[xlii]

Although the American Bar Association rated Bork “well qualified,” the ACLU called him “unfit.” Senator Edward Kennedy, who led the Senate fight against the conservative jurist, charged that Bork’s nomination would lead to an America where women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police would break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, school children would not be taught about evolution, writers and authors could be censored at the whim of government and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens.[xliii]

Not since 1964 and LBJ’s Anti-Campaign against Barry Goldwater had a conservative been subjected to so fierce and unfair an attack. The Boston Globe’s Supreme Court correspondent wrote that Kennedy “shamelessly twisted Bork’s world view.”[xliv]

Bork’s nomination dominated the political agenda in the late summer and early fall of 1987. His five days of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee were nationally televised. Former President Gerald Ford personally introduced the nominee to the committee. Former President Jimmy Carter then sent a letter stating his opposition. One hundred and ten witnesses appeared for and against Bork during two weeks of hearings. Finally, the Democrat-controlled Judiciary Committee refused by a vote of 9-5 to recommend Bork’s nomination. The Senate then voted 58-42 against confirmation: six moderate Republicans broke party ranks and voted with fifty-two Democrats against Bork while two Democrats voted for Bork. Liberals loudly celebrated their victory, but soon after, Reagan nominated and won confirmation of a lower-keyed conservative, Anthony M. Kennedy.

Several factors combined to deny Robert Bork a seat on the Supreme Court: a strongly partisan Democratic Senate, a president weakened by the Iran-contra affair, a White House that did not launch its nomination campaign early enough, a liberal opposition that was better organized and financed than the conservative support, and a nominee who was often contentious and contradictory in his testimony. But ultimately Bork was rejected because of his view that the Constitution was “the Founders’ Constitution” bound by original intent and not a “living document” susceptible to the interpretation of current justices.[xlv] Today, however, Bork’s traditional view of the Constitution is increasingly articulated by a majority of the Supreme Court.

Although Bork’s defeat was a major setback for the Reagan administration, it could not negate Reagan’s significant legal legacy of a conservative federal judiciary from top to bottom. “Reagan’s success lies not simply in quantity but quality,” concluded conservative author Terry Eastland, who worked in the administration’s Justice department. Indeed, Reagan’s judges, according to biographer Lou Cannon, “ranked above [those of] Carter, Ford, Nixon and Johnson.”[xlvi]

The Reagans have tea with Prince Charles and Princess Diana in the White House residence. 11/9/85 .

I remember when I visited London in July of 1981 and the whole town was getting ready for the big royal wedding between Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Above you will see them pictured with President Reagan.

From November of 1980, here is CBS’s coverage of Election Night. Taped from WJKW-TV8, Cleveland. This is part 2 of 3.

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 tenth portion:

Even the Heritage Foundation, as good a friend of the Reagan administration as there was in Washington, concluded after one year that although headed in the right direction, the administration “should and could have accomplished more.” The foundation estimated that of two thousand recommendations made in its monumental Mandate for Leadership: Policy Management in a Conservative Administration, published in late 1980 just before Reagan took office, about 1,270 suggestions — “only” 60 percent — had been implemented or initiated. The “only” seemed gratuitous: Even the fabled Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox would have been satisfied with a .600 batting average. But conservatives, out of power for decades, were impatient and demanding of results.

Certainly the Reagan administration achieved much in the domestic field in its first term — reducing inflation, lowering unemployment, cutting the prime interest rate in half and producing economic growth of six percent in 1983. But it did not solve all the old problems and indeed failed to even tackle some, such as the federal deficit and intrusive federal departments like Education. After chalking up a series of impressive budget victories in their first year and maintaining the policy initiative, Reagan officials, according to Heritage’s Stuart M. Butler, “appeared to lose their edge.”[xxxv]

There were several reasons for the slowdown. The federal bureaucracy, protective of its power, began to dig in and practice its well-honed delaying tactics. The Democratic opposition in Congress, led by the wily House Speaker Tip O’Neill, organized more effectively. Pragmatic Reagan aides like Jim Baker kept resisting bold initiatives. And the complicated budget process (authorization, appropriation, conference committees, etc.) allowed liberal legislators to block White House proposals and whittle away at the president’s early antispending victories. All the while, the mounting federal deficits made conservatives in Congress increasingly nervous.

Contrary to conservative hopes, Reagan was not able to cut overall government spending, which remained at roughly 22 percent of GNP during his eight years in office. But the change in priorities was significant, with defense spending increasing from 5 to 6.5 percent of GNP, thus enabling the president to deal with the Soviets from a position of strength. Even so, Heritage analysts Robert Rector and Michael Sanera pointed out, the Reagan buildup, measured in constant dollars, was “about half the size of Eisenhower’s peacetime military increases.”[xxxvi] Which suggests, ironically, that Ike himself might have been responsible, at least partially, for the creation of the “military-industrial complex” which he warned America about in his farewell address.

Still, if one examines the economic report cards of American presidents from Truman through Reagan, Reagan easily finishes first. Using the change each year in inflation, unemployment, interest rates and growth in Gross National Product, Harvard economist Robert Barro ranked Reagan number one. Among other things, Reagan engineered the largest reduction in the misery index (the total of inflation and unemployment) in history — 50 percent. In fact, sums up economist Richard B. McKenzie, the 1980s were, up to then, “the most prosperous decade in American history.”[xxxvii]

President Reagan attending the Bob Hope Salute to the United States Air Force 40th Anniversary celebration with Kirk Cameron, Phyllis Diller, Lucille Ball and Emmanuel Lewis at Pope Air Force base in Fayetteville, North Carolina. 5/10/87

7:40 PM EDT on November 6, 1984 from ABC7 WLS-TV Chicago.
ABC News – The 84 Vote
Peter Jennings, David Brinkley, Bert Lance – Georgia Dem State Chairman

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 seventh portion:

There is no denying that American indebtedness increased significantly during the Reagan years. Reagan borrowed $1 for every $5 he spent, increasing the national debt by $1.5 trillion through 1988. He didn’t have to worry too much about where to get the money — America was still such a good credit risk that people around the world “pressed money on us, and we obliged, borrowing easily, quickly, and almost guiltlessly,” in Cannon’s words, [xxi] But Reagan did feel guilty about the accumulated debt or as much as anyone with his unassailable optimism could feel guilty. He admitted that his failures to cut federal spending absolutely and to balance the federal budget were his “biggest disappointments” as president.[xxii]

But it is a little-remembered fact, as Cato Institute economist Stephen Moore has emphasized, that by the end of the Reagan era, the federal deficit as a share of gross domestic product was falling, and rapidly — from 6 percent in 1985 to 3 percent in 1989. As Reagan left office, the Democrat-controlled Congressional Budget Office projected that “deficits were on a path to fall to about one percent of GDP by 1993,” without any action by future presidents.[xxiii]

Reagan never ignored the deficit — he just had more important things on his mind. As he said in 1981, “I did not come here to balance the budget — not at the expense of my tax-cutting program and my defense program.”[xxiv] Still, every budget he submitted to Congress outlined spending reductions which would have reduced the cumulative deficit during the 1980s by several hundred billion dollars. But Congress nullified this possibility with a succession of “continuing resolutions” that enabled the government to keep operating and keep spending at the same level.

The persistent deficits did, however, have an unintended impact on Congress, which for the first time in the post-war era began to “impose limits on the growth of government.” Of all the measures we know, Milton Friedman wrote, “the deficit has been the only effective restraint on congressional spending.”[xxv]

President Reagan devoted most of his time in the spring and early summer of 1981 (after he had recovered from the March 30th shooting by would-be assassin John Hinckley) building a consensus for his economic recovery program. Time’s Lawrence Barrett described the president’s strategy as initial “seduction” followed by a “blitzkreig.”[xxvi] Reagan began by showing the Washington establishment that he was not a dangerous man or a “political freak.” He had drinks with House Speaker Tip O’Neill, a meeting with Senator Edward Kennedy, and a chat with publisher Katharine Graham of the Washington Post. Quite a charmer, they agreed, but certainly no real threat to the way Washington works.

O’Neill was so deceived that he condescendingly offered some advice to the new fellow in town: “You were governor of a state,” he told Reagan, “but a governor plays in the minor leagues. Now you’re in the big leagues. Things might not move as quickly as you would like.” Just eight months later, the House of Representatives passed Reagan’s economic recovery plan by 238-195, with the cross-over help of forty-eight Democrats who didn’t mind going against their Speaker when it was in the best interests of their constituents.

Reagan called Congress’s passage of the bill “the greatest political victory in half a century.” Jubilant conservatives described it as a “new economic beginning.” David Broder of the Washington Post proclaimed Reagan’s tax victory as “one of the most remarkable demonstrations of presidential leadership in modern history.”[xxvii] The $162 billion tax cut dwarfed any previous one in the postwar period — Ford’s $22.8 billion reduction in 1975 was a distant second.

The cuts in personal income taxes “had a permanency unlike that of any [previous] tax bill” because of the indexing provision. In the past, individuals were pushed into higher tax brackets whenever their income rose along with inflation. ERTA did away with “bracket creep” and prevented political leaders from “solving” fiscal deficits by waiting for inflation to increase revenues each year. From now on, Congress had to pass and the president had to sign any tax increase out in the open. How to collect government revenues “became the dominating political issue of the 1980s.”[xxviii]