TRUMANThe ‘Fair Deal’ as a continuation of the legacy of the New Deal

21 Point ProgramFull Employment

Expand Social Security:improve unemployment insurancecreate health insurance plan

Increase hourly minimum wage to 75 cents

Slum clearance & public housing

Aid to educationExpand public works projects

G.I. Bill – assistance to veteransDesegregation of the armed forces

EISENHOWERModerate Republican

‘What’s good for the country is good for general Motors and vice versa.’

Maintained social welfare policies of the New Deal:Federal aid to housing & education & the disabledMinimum wage increased to $1

Civil Rights: 1957 Little Rock Central High SchoolCivil Rights Commission

Interstate Highway Act 1956 - $25 billion in federal spending

NASA 1958

Removed wage & price controlsOpposed national health insurance programReduced federal spending: $1 billion budget surplus

KENNEDY‘NEW FRONTIER’

Apollo space program

Peace Corps

Limited expansion of unemployment benefits

Raised minimum wage to $1.25

Proposed medical insurance for the poor & elderly,Federal aid to education & housing

Blocked by Republicans & conservative/southern Democrats

Lacks leadership on Civil Rights

Cold War issues – Berlin & Cuba (Bay of Pigs & Missile Crisis)preoccupy presidency

JOHNSON‘GREAT SOCIETY’ War on Poverty Civil Rights

Office of Economic OpportunityEducationEmploymentHousingHealth CareCommunity Action

Social Security expandedMedicare (old)Medicaid (poor)

Civil Rights Act 1964Voting Rights Act 1965

$11 billion tax cutFederal budget deficit

Preoccupation with escalating Vietnam War

NIXON‘law and order’The ‘Silent Majority’

Reduced spending on anti-poverty programsAbolished OEO‘New Federalism’

Wage & Price Freeze inResponse to ‘stagflation’(inflation & recession)Opposed Supreme Court decisionsoutlawing school prayer and legalizing abortion

1970 - EPA Environmental Protection AgencyOSHA Occupational Safety & Health

Civil Rights: Affirmative Action programs expanded

WATERGATE

Nixon resigns & pardoned by Ford

CARTERWashington ‘outsider’ – former governor of Georgia

Carter in Kentucky in 1979

• --

• Reduce the annual growth rate in energy demand to less than two percent.

• --Reduce gasoline consumption by ten percent below its current level.• --Cut in half the portion of United States oil which is imported, from a

potential level of 16 million barrels to 6 million barrels a day.• --Establish a strategic petroleum reserve of one billion barrels, more

than six months' supply.• --Increase our coal production by about two thirds to more than 1

billion tons a year.• --Insulate 90 percent of American homes and all new buildings.• --Use solar energy in more than two and one-half million houses.

Carter focused on economy (recession & unemployment)But policies to cut taxes, increase spending and raise interest ratesled to inflation due to high energy prices (1974 & 1979 OPEC raises oil prices)

Carter’s Energy Policy

• Rise of New Right/Growth of the Sunbelt

• 1978 California Proposition 13 tax revolt– Attack on New Deal – style programs

• The Moral Majority

Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson

Social Trends in the 1970s and 80sConservative shift

REAGANFree-market supply-side economicsTax cuts for the wealthy and corporationsDeregulation of environmental laws

Neo-conservativespopulism & ‘culture wars’war on drugs

‘Government isn’t the solution; it’s the problem’

Economic & Fiscal problems:

First term: high unemployment & inflation

Huge budget deficits due to 40% increase in military spending and 25% in tax revenueHuge cuts in domestic social welfare programs

BUSH*Only one term of office 1988-92*Former US ambassador to the UN and *Director of the CIA in the 1970s*Reagan’s Vice-President 1980-1988*Conservative domestic policies: Supreme Court appointmentsincreased military spending

Economic problems: national debt, budget deficit, recessionrising unemployment, spending cuts & gov’t layoffs & tax riseIn spite of « no new taxes, read my lips » campaign promise

Preoccupied with Foreign Policy:End of the Cold War/ »New World Order »Reunification of Germany Invasion of Panama Dec 1989- Jan 1990Middle East: Persian Gulf War 1990-1991

CLINTON

Centrist New Democrat« era of biggovernment is over »Reduction of federal budget deficits by $500 billion(mid 1990s economic boom –1993 NAFTA)

1994 Republicans gain majority in Congress « Contract with America »A conservative agenda to resume Reagan revolution:

Balanced budget Amendment to ConstitutionTax cuutsReduce welfare & other social programsReduce gov’t regulations of industry, stock market, environmentTough on crime

1998 Monica Lewinsky sex scandal leads to impeachment