Contemp Am Hist Article Cycle Five - Final
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Stephen Kramer
Contemporary American History
Professor Mellinger
11/7/21
Article Cycle Five
By the time Nixon and his administration took office, America’s post-World War II
prosperity had come to an end, and the beginning of an era of high inflation and unemployment.
The rise of inflation would force President Nixon to adopt a policy that was meant to cool an
overheated economy, by limiting the growth of the money supply to curb the economic boom
that occurred under the LBJ administration. Gradualism was the term used to explain Nixon’s
domestic policy that was adopted to fight inflation, but as the name indicated, it would not
deliver immediate results (
Hughes, 2020
).
Evidently this plan did not work and by 1971 unemployment had reached a stammering
6.2%, all while inflation raged on. As a result, President Nixon and his advisers were forced to
chalk up a new policy and in August of 1971 known as the New Economic Policy, which would
implement a wage-and-price freeze, tax cuts, and a provisional halt that prevented nations from
demanding American gold in exchange for American dollars, as well as a 10% import tax. The
New Economic Policy had overwhelming public approval rating, but by 1974 inflation had risen
to 12.1%, pushing the U.S. economy into recession (
Hughes, 2020
).
The conservative base was disappointed by Nixon’s domestic policies because they also
favored the liberal agenda. In order for Nixon to have a successful presidency which came at
liberalism’s postwar height at the end of the 60s, he needed to take the American political left
into account (
Hughes, 2020
).
As the economy crumbled, Nixon decided to appoint the Treasury Secretary John
Connally as an economic spokesman, but Connally would go on to slam Nixon’s intentions. By
August of 1971, President Nixon met with all of his economic advisers at Camp David in
Maryland to create his New Economic Policy and reverse his take, resolving matters with the
Treasury Secretary (
Hughes, 2020
).
The Pentagon Papers (officially titled “Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense
Vietnam Task Force”) being leaked to the press, outlining how presidents from Truman to
Johnson continually misled the American public on the directions and scopes of the Vietnam War
(
Locke & Wright, 2019
).
Watergate was a botched plan to have the offices of the Democratic National Committee
at the Watergate Complex in our nation’s capital wiretapped, five men would be arrested, one
being a former CIA employee working security for President Nixon’s reelection campaign.
Although there is no direct evidence of Nixon ordering these men to break in. Massive cover-ups
from the White House, CIA, and FBI followed, but due largely to two Washington Times
journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward for reporting on information as it surfaced
regarding the break-ins, tying the White House, FBI, and CIA closer (
Locke & Wright, 2019
).
The Church Committee Reports were 14 reports from the Church Committee published in
1975 and 1976, that provide a plethora of information on the formation and operation of the
United States intelligence agencies, as well as the abuses committed by these agencies. The
Committee’s findings are documented in The Interim Report, revealed the United States plans,
attempts, and capabilities to assassinate foreign leaders, specifically General Schneider of Chile,
Cuba’s Fidel Castro, the Diem brothers in Vietnam, Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, and
Patrice Lumumba of the Congo (
https://www.maryferrell.org/php/showlist.php?docset=1014
).
These repeated instances of going behind the American public’s back and cover-up
attempts would eventually undermine the popular confidence in government. One of the long-
term consequences for the lack of confidence in government was the passage of the War Powers
Resolution in 1973 that drastically reduced the president’s ability to initiate war without consent
from Congress, a direct result of the leaking of the Pentagon Papers
(
https://www.maryferrell.org/php/showlist.php?docset=1014
).
Conservative Protestants had retreated from politics mainly due to their part in the Scopes
Trial, commonly known as the Scopes Monkey Trial, where a Tennessee public school science
teacher was prosecuted for teaching evolution in his classroom. By the 1970s the Religious Right
began to reemerge through Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, a Baptist minister with a TV
ministry, and an Evangelical Christian and religious talk show host, both from Virginia. The
rebirth of the Religious Right can be attributed to Falwell and affluent bankers who backed them,
worried by their perception of the moral decline in America as part due to liberal Supreme Court
decisions (
Leaming
,
2009
).
The main agendas that were being pushed by the Religious Right were the right to
voluntary practice religion in public schools, the opposition of evolution being taught in the
public school system, abortion, and gay rights. Another point that was made by this party was
that the distinction of the separation of state and church being blurred (
Leaming, 2009
). The
Religious Right used political lobbying groups to help achieve their aims, by funding lawsuits
throughout the nation in order to connect Evangelical Christianity and government in the United
States (
Leaming, 2009
).
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One of the groups that were in the Republican coalition in the 1980s was the Moral
Majority run by Reverend Jerry Falwell, who used the organization to back Ronald Reagan,
adding an estimated two million voters in 1980. I believe that these groups aligned with Reagan
and the Republican Party as they vowed to reduce government spending while simultaneously
decreasing the federal bureaucracy, as well as opposing abortion and advocating for prayer in
public schools (
Locke & Wright, 2019
).
President Reagan declared in his first inaugural speech that “government is not the
solution to the problem, government is the problem”
(Reagan, 1981
), his plans were to reduce
the role of government. His administration welcomed the supply-side economic theory, the idea
that lowering personal and corporate tax rates that would promote larger amounts of private
investments as well as production, this theory was referred to as the Laffer Curve (
Locke &
Wright, 2019
).
Lyndon Johnson domestic policy, which were referred to as the “Great Society” that
would create government programs and organizations meant to assist the disadvantaged, elderly,
and poor families suffering in America at the time, such as Medicaid and Medicare. The idea that
growing the size of the U.S. government, implementing these policies and organizations would
help bolster the economy.
These policies and notions differed from President Reagan’s as he believed that the
government should be less involved in the individual lives of Americans, seeking tax cuts that
were intended to boost federal revenue (
Cannon, 2020
).
The assumptions of supply-side economics did hasten what some historians have called
the Second Gilded Age as the plan of increasing the federal revenue through large tax cuts
ultimately failed and by 1982, recession had once again struck hit America, as prime interest
rates soared to 20% and the economy began to fall, unemployment rose to just under 10%, and
nearly 1/3 of industrial plants in America stop production
(
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/outlines/history-2005/the-new-conservatism-and-a-new-world-
order/the-economy-in-the-1980s.php
).
Sources:
Cannon, L. (2020, September 25).
Ronald Reagan: Domestic Affairs
. Miller Center. Retrieved
November 10, 2021, from
https://millercenter.org/president/reagan/domestic-affairs
.
Ferrell, M., Foundation (n.d.).
Church Committee Reports
. Retrieved November 9, 2021, from
https://www.maryferrell.org/php/showlist.php?docset=1014
.
Hughes, K., (2020, June 16).
Richard Nixon: Domestic Affairs
. Retrieved November 9, 2021,
from
https://millercenter.org/president/nixon/domestic-affairs
.
Hughes, K., (2020, June 16).
Richard Nixon: Impact and legacy
. Retrieved November 9, 2021,
from
https://millercenter.org/president/nixon/impact-and-legacy
.
Leaming, J. (2009).
Religious Right
. Retrieved November 9, 2021, from
https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1375/religious-right
.
Locke, J. L., & Wright, B. (2019).
The American Yawp: A Massively Collaborative Open U.S.
History Textbook
. Stanford University Press.
Reagan, R. (1981, January 20). First Inaugural Address [Speech audio recording]. Miller Center.
https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/january-20-1981-first-
inaugural-address
.
The Economy in the 1980s
. The economy in the 1980s < The New Conservatism and a New
World Order < History 2005 < American History from Revolution to Reconstruction and
beyond. (n.d.). Retrieved November 10, 2021, from
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http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/outlines/history-2005/the-new-conservatism-and-a-new-world-
order/the-economy-in-the-1980s.php
.