According to President Ronald Reagan, the 40th U.S. President (1981-1989), the gov-ernment should be highly accountable to its citizens, particularly when it comes to the spending of tax dollars. Reagan clearly expresses a critical perspective towards the role of the United States government in that excessive spending has been a significant problem. Reagan upholds a perspective of a classical liberalist in the way he criticizes the nature of the welfare state – one that is flawed when citizens lack incentive to work hard in achieving self-sufficiency and rely heavily on government support. That is, Reagan openly states a concern regarding fiscal and monetary policies where the government is spending possibly more than …show more content…
The source perspective promotes works for the interests of the public because it embraces supply-side economic theory which seeks to limit and cut government spending on the creation of jobs for the economy. Overall, it seems that in a welfare state, many are benefited. However, if one were to analyze this system, one would realize that such economic system has high potential to experience deficits. For instance, Reagan is very appreciated by conservatives and loved by big business throughout his presidency and that is because once he came into office January of 1981, the top tax rate was 70%, but when he left office in 1989, the top tax rate dropped to only 28% revealing a lack of revenue coming into the federal government. Yet Reagan was forced to raise taxes eleven times throughout his time in office. This displayed when he signed the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982. Thus leading to a serious amount of debt. The U.S ended up tripling their National Debt, cutting the tax for the wealth, leaving the government with less money to spend. When Reagan came into office the nation debt was $900 billion, by the tim he left the national debt had tripled to 2.8 trillion. He can also be very criticized for his attack on Unions and the Middle Class - The Republican war on unions and the middle class has been heating up in states like Wisconsin and Ohio, that has been an on going issue. Unions are formed to give a united voice to the workers in an attempt to create equality and collective security between the corporations and their employees. For example, on August 3rd, 1981, PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization) went on strike in an effort to get better pay and safer working conditions. Two days later, taking the side of business, Ronald Reagan fired 11,345 workers for not returning to work. With these examples, one can see how through
During the campaign of 1980, Ronald Reagan announced a formula to fix the nation’s economy. He claimed an inordinate tax burden, intemperate government regulation, and huge social spending programs hindered growth. Reagan proposed a 30 percent tax cut for the first three years of his term in office. The bulk cut would be directed towards the upper income levels. The economic theory was called supply-side of trickle-down economics.
Though Reagan and Bush found tax cuts effective for the economy, the budget deficit continues to rise. As President Ronald Reagan takes office in 1981, he proposed tax cuts and reduced non-defense expenditures to increase military spending to Congress. Reagan believed that tax cuts would create more job opportunities for people and increase tax revenue in the long run. Lee et al. (2012) found “The tax cuts adopted in 1997, unlike those of 1981, were accompanied by offsetting expenditure reductions, so there was not as much of a reduction in federal revenue… therefore federal revenues did not increase” (Public Budgeting Systems, p. 74).
However even after Reagan left office in 1989, many other politicians after him picked up the Supply side ideal of lowering taxes and reducing the size of the federal government. An example of this is former US president Bill Clinton whom in one if his State of the Union addresses said, “The era of big governments is over” (WPA Film Library). The idea of reducing governmental size was one that was part of Reagan’s economic plan. Reaganomics was effective in diminishing the inflation rate, as the Federal Reserve Board kept up a tight cash supply. Due to the blend of tax reductions and expanded military spending, the Reagan years saw the formation of the biggest spending plan shortages ever.
During Reagan turn in Presidency he concentrated on foreign policy and the economy. He believed that America’s power was constrained by the government’s extreme regulations. Originally, Reagan had campaigned on restoring prosperity, on cutting intrusive government, and on strengthening American values. Reagan highlight was a formula called supply-side economics. His vision was to keep interest rates high to fight inflation, thus promoting economic growth, and to reduce the support for some social programs by removing some government regulations.
Reagan's many successes as president owed much to his actor's instincts and much to the popular pessimism that he inherited and that his sunny temperament helped at least temporarily to dispel. The same factors contributed as well to the many shortcomings of his administration: its tendency to emphasize style over substance, its emphasis on short-term economic and political benefits at the price of long-term costs, and its insouciant refusal to acknowledge deep domestic and international problems that might undermine the hopeful picture of the world Reagan consistently presented. His presidency coincided with, and contributed to, a long period of dramatic economic growth and the beginning of a momentous change in international relations. But
With all the accomplishments that are associated with Ronald Reagan there are also criticisms; in this
The creation of this economic system also resulted in major draw-back of government assistance, and tax lessening's; it cut social welfare and federal government entitlement. Part of his plan, Reagan created one of the largest military spending programs known to history, earning nearly 1.5 trillion dollars mostly due to his being greatly anticommunist. A branch of this, the Strategic Defense Initiative, also received much support from this financial military aid plan. President Reagan also lived under the illusion that "supply side economics" could have a positive effect on the country; this theory stated that a reduction in taxes could improve many aspects of industry. However, by cutting taxes, this also cut many of the government funds; therefore, the government was forced to take out loans which led to our great nation being in very deep
His plan for Presidency was to end this problem through the process of reforming welfare. On February 15, 1986, President Ronald Reagan gave a radio address where he spoke about his ideas pertaining to welfare reform (“Welfare Reform”). During Reagan’s address on welfare reform, he discussed the “crisis of family breakdowns” where he revealed the issues within families of recent generations including teenage mothers. He shows how this was leading America into a high level of poverty which could be helped through changes in welfare programs and policies. Ronald Reagan greatly impacted modern America by changing welfare and inspiring others to find additional solutions to welfare issues such as
Political Differences in Policy between the Two Parties Within the Political world, there are many differences in opinion that split the nation into two major parties. These political parties, the republicans and democrats, find different solutions to the problems that the United States faces in today’s world. Two of the these policies that split the parties are climate change and fiscal policy. Both issues are very important to the country, but their are stark contrasts in policy when it comes to the two parties.
This economic program was planned to promote economic growth, but instead it brought upon more economic burden upon the lower urban social class (Foner 2017). Reagan’s plan to tax the wealthy less to improve the lives of the poor did not pan out well to
The 80 's was a pivotal and controversial decade in American history. It can be characterized by prominent political, religious, military, economic and social aspects. While turbulence was common, it is also noted for being one of the most influential and important periods for America and the rest of the world as well. When asked what they remember about 1980 's politics, one might immediately think of Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan was born February 6th, 1911.
In federalist paper #4 John Jay, explains the pros of having one strong national government to protect the people from foreign forces and influences; Rather than having 13 or 4 separate states or confederacies. Jay explains in depth how essential it is for America to be one nation with one government in charge of all states (colonies), and be able to commanded and provide safety to all of the states and its people. He states how much more efficiently one government can,” harmonize, assimilate, and protect several parts and members, and extend the benefits of its foresight and precautions to each.” Through maintaining the upper hand over foreign nations in trading, managing finances efficiently, maintain strong militia, free and united powerful
There’s only an up or down: man’s old --old aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.” This shows his ethics and the passion he has when he presents his speech. Reagan stated,”Today, 37 cents out of every dollar earned in the country is the tax collector’s share,” He also included,”We’ve raised our debt limit three times in the last twelve months, and now our national debt is one and a half times bigger than all the combined debts of all the nations of the world.” Reagan shows us that he knows about the numbers and logistics of our nation which is logos. Since he knows specific numbers, more people will listen to what he is trying to
Summary The three branches of government should be independent No branch should have power over selecting who makes up the other two branches However, the citizens cannot practically elect individuals for every office for example, the people may not be able to distinguish what makes a good judge (for judicial branch). the government has to be able to govern itself, meaning since men can be greedy, there must be constitutional walls that prevent one branch from becoming too powerful
The tax cut and increased defense spending increased the federal deficit. Increased spending for welfare programs and unemployment compensation, both of which were induced by the plunge in real GDP in the early 1980s, contributed to the deficit as well. As deficits continued to rise, they began to dominate discussions of fiscal policy. The events of the 1980s do not suggest that either monetarist or new classical ideas should be abandoned, but those events certainly raised doubts about relying solely on these approaches. Reducing the deficit dominated much of fiscal policy discussion during the 1980s and 1990s.