Candidate Research from 1980 Election Ronald Reagan
Cynthia Conway
Casper College
Candidate Research From 1980 Election Ronald Reagan
The 1980 presidential election in the United States presented the desire of Americans to seek an alternative to President Jimmy Carter’s liberal policies that were deemed to be failing. Most voters complained about how the economy of the United States had remained stagnant in the 1970’s and thus called for the need to have changes in the White House. Both inflation and unemployment had remained high, real income had increased by only 1.5% from 1965 and the administration was being accused for failing to mitigate issues related to foreign policies like the Iran hostage case.
The general Jimmy …show more content…
He also disagreed with the move by President Ford to pardon those who escaped the drafts during the Vietnam War. Reign publically blamed Ford for the deficits in the budget and called him a poor leader.
Reagan criticized politicians and the federal government for being too powerful, too large and also too involved in the society. He did not like most of the programs on social welfare and was for the idea that the state governments should remain solely responsible for welfare, education, Medicare, food stamps and development projects. He stated that if the government situated in Washington could have these programs transferred entirely to different states, this could save the country more than $90 billion, substantially on the federal income taxes and at the same time balancing the budget (Broder, 2010).
His campaign was mainly centered on the idea of having a new America. Reagan believed in a national defense that was stronger and this included a major rebuild of the military so as to be in a position to continue to combat aggression from international communists during the Cold War. He was against an expansive federal government that favored laissez faire politics as it meant limited intervention from the …show more content…
This made him settle for his opponent George Bush after they had patched their political and personal differences.
However, the phenomenon that can be considered as to have greatly impacted and propelled the rise of Reagan and to have shaped his presidency goes back to 1978. During this year, Howard Jarvis, who was the conservative activist, launched what is deemed as the first major campaign, successful tax revolt on citizens through coming up with an elaborate campaign.
This included Proposition 13 that was a referendum question about the California ballot that rolled back tax rates on property (Lerman, 2002). At that time of slow economic growth as well as stagnated economy, this revolt against taxes had a tremendous appeal to Americans. The Proposition 13 easily passed and several other states passed referenda similar to it in the following years. This tax revolt rapidly moved from local politics and national politics. Through reducing tax rates and imposing large cuts on wealthy people, the government would be in a position to encourage investors while at the same time assist in producing the required growth to achieve higher revenues on total
Cynthia Conway
Casper College
Candidate Research From 1980 Election Ronald Reagan
The 1980 presidential election in the United States presented the desire of Americans to seek an alternative to President Jimmy Carter’s liberal policies that were deemed to be failing. Most voters complained about how the economy of the United States had remained stagnant in the 1970’s and thus called for the need to have changes in the White House. Both inflation and unemployment had remained high, real income had increased by only 1.5% from 1965 and the administration was being accused for failing to mitigate issues related to foreign policies like the Iran hostage case.
The general Jimmy …show more content…
He also disagreed with the move by President Ford to pardon those who escaped the drafts during the Vietnam War. Reign publically blamed Ford for the deficits in the budget and called him a poor leader.
Reagan criticized politicians and the federal government for being too powerful, too large and also too involved in the society. He did not like most of the programs on social welfare and was for the idea that the state governments should remain solely responsible for welfare, education, Medicare, food stamps and development projects. He stated that if the government situated in Washington could have these programs transferred entirely to different states, this could save the country more than $90 billion, substantially on the federal income taxes and at the same time balancing the budget (Broder, 2010).
His campaign was mainly centered on the idea of having a new America. Reagan believed in a national defense that was stronger and this included a major rebuild of the military so as to be in a position to continue to combat aggression from international communists during the Cold War. He was against an expansive federal government that favored laissez faire politics as it meant limited intervention from the …show more content…
This made him settle for his opponent George Bush after they had patched their political and personal differences.
However, the phenomenon that can be considered as to have greatly impacted and propelled the rise of Reagan and to have shaped his presidency goes back to 1978. During this year, Howard Jarvis, who was the conservative activist, launched what is deemed as the first major campaign, successful tax revolt on citizens through coming up with an elaborate campaign.
This included Proposition 13 that was a referendum question about the California ballot that rolled back tax rates on property (Lerman, 2002). At that time of slow economic growth as well as stagnated economy, this revolt against taxes had a tremendous appeal to Americans. The Proposition 13 easily passed and several other states passed referenda similar to it in the following years. This tax revolt rapidly moved from local politics and national politics. Through reducing tax rates and imposing large cuts on wealthy people, the government would be in a position to encourage investors while at the same time assist in producing the required growth to achieve higher revenues on total