Chapter 12
THE PRESIDENT
The Reagan Revolution
 Reagan
and the modern presidency
• The times were ripe for Ronald Reagan’s
brand of leadership in the 1980s.
• Polls showed that people were eager for
change.
• When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, he
interpreted his landslide victory as a mandate
to pursue sweeping changes.
 Tax
and budget proposals were given top
priority in the proposals Reagan announced
in his Program for Economic Recovery.
• Reagan proposed the largest tax cut in
American history (directed mainly at
upper-income groups and corporations.
• He proposed the steepest rise in defense
spending in peacetime American history.


Democratic opposition looked formidable.
• Controlled a large majority of seats in the House of
Representatives
• Only a slim Republican majority in the Senate
The Reagan offensive —a skilled and shrewd deal maker
• Cultivated friendly relations with members of Congress
from both parties
• Worked to build up his popularity with the public
• Exerted political pressure in conservative areas in the
South with Democratic members of Congress

Reaction
• The administration’s tax bill passed easily in the Senate
(72-20) and received a majority of the votes in the
House of Representatives.
• He was successful in the House primarily because of
the support of southern conservative Democrats.
• Reagan got most of what he wanted in domestic budget
cuts and the defense buildup.
• Politicians were impressed by the scale of Reagan’s
electoral victory and by the height of his popularity.

Effects
• The Reagan Revolution had profound effects,
not all of them positive.
• Although some economic growth occurred, the
legacies of the 1980s also included:
– A massive increase in the size of the debt
– Dramatic increases in the scale of income
and wealth inequality
• Despite the long-term problems, the Reagan
Revolution was a huge political success.
• An understanding of the Reagan Revolution
requires that we understand not just the
personality, style, and effectiveness of Reagan
as president but also the governmental,
political, and structural contexts within which
he operated (just as with other presidents).
The Expanding Presidency
There has been an obvious increase in presidential
responsibilities, burdens, power, and impact since
the nation’s founding.
 The Founders’ conception of the office of
president was much more limited than what we
see in the modern presidency.
 The vague language of the Constitution has been
flexible enough to include the great expansion of
the presidency that has occurred.

The Dormant Presidency
Until the end of the nineteenth century, the
presidency conformed basically to the designs and
intentions of the Founders.
 The nation did not often require a very strong
presidency prior to the twentieth century.
 Structural changes since the end of the nineteenth
century
 The influence of early presidents

Twentieth-Century Transformation




The more enduring changes in the presidency came in the
twentieth century when new structural conditions made an
expanded presidency both possible and necessary.
The influence of twentieth-century presidents
Impact of World War II on the growth of the presidency
All U.S. presidents since the time of Franklin Roosevelt
have administered a huge national state with large standing
armed forces, nuclear weapons, and bases all around the
world.
 How
important are individual presidents?
• We cannot be sure to what extent
presidents themselves caused the great
expansion of the scope of their office.
• The great upsurges in presidential power
and activity were at least partially the
results of forces at the structural level.
The Many Roles of the President


Clinton Rossiter introduced the image of the many “hats”
that presidents wear simultaneously.
• Chief of State
• Commander in Chief
• Joint Chief Legislator
• Manager of the Economy
• Chief Diplomat
• Head of the Political Party
Each of the presidential functions or “hats” is demanding;
together, they are overwhelming.
The President’s Staff and Cabinet
 White
House staff
• Includes a number of key aides who are
the president’s closest and most trusted
advisors
• The exact shape of the White House staff
changes from one presidency to another
and is used by different presidents in a
variety of ways.



Executive Office of the President (EOP) —a group of
permanent presidential staff organizations that perform
specialized functions
Vice-Presidency —has no constitutional powers or duties
except to serve as President of the Senate, a ceremonial
function of no real power
The Cabinet —not mentioned in the Constitution, but all
presidents have had one; the cabinet is a highly visible
symbol of the executive branch, but presidents have
usually not relied upon it as a decision making body
The President and the Bureaucracy




Presidents have significant controls with regard to the
bureaucracy, but the president’s ability to give orders and
to gain bureaucratic acquiescence is limited.
Many people erroneously assume that the president has
firm control over the executive branch of government.
To a large extent, presidents must persuade other executive
branch officials to take certain actions.
Richard Neustadt said that “presidential power is the
power to persuade.”
The President and Congress:
Perpetual Tug-of-War
 Conflict
by constitutional design
• Our constitutional structure means that
presidents are limited and affected in
what they can do by Congress.
• Congress reflects various political forces.
• The president and Congress are
frequently in an adversarial relationship.

Relative influence of president and Congress
• The uneven expansion of the presidency has meant that
there has been a shifting ascendancy of one branch over
another.
• Cycles of congressional resurgence
• With the Great Depression, the New Deal, World War II
and Franklin Roosevelt, the presidency gained
ascendancy for over half a century.
• From Truman to Clinton
 What
makes a president successful with
Congress?
• Party and ideology
• Foreign policy issues
• Presidential vetoes
• Presidential popularity
• Legislative skills
The President and the People: An
Evolving Relationship

The complicated relationships that exist among the
governmental units of the president, the executive
branch as a whole, and Congress have a lot to do
with various political forces.
• Differing relationships can be seen in the ways in which
public opinion, political parties, and organized interests
affect what they do differently.
• The special relationship that exists between the
president and the general public
• Getting closer to the people
More Democratic Elections
The system quickly evolved into a more
democratic one in which the people played a more
direct role.
 By 1880, the two-party system had begun to
develop.
 Early in the nineteenth century, state legislatures
began to turn the power to choose presidential
electors over to the people through direct election.
 The base of suffrage broadened.

Going Public




By the beginning of the twentieth century, the presidency
had undergone a basic transformation: presidents began to
speak directly to the public.
Woodrow Wilson created a new constitutional theory
advocating close connections between the president and
the public.
All presidents now attempt to respond to public opinion,
and all try to speak directly to the people about policy.
Contemporary presidents frequently go public by using
television to bypass Congress and the press.
Using the Media
 Modern
presidents have used television to
enhance their power to shape public
opinion.
 Leading public opinion
 Responding to the public
 Quiet influence
 Listening to the public
The Role of Presidential Popularity
 The
public’s influence works through
presidential popularity or unpopularity.
 Presidents have strong incentives to
anticipate public reactions and to do things
that will please the public
Interest Groups, Political Parties,
and Social Movements
 Interest
groups
• Organized groups exert important kinds
of influence on presidential policy.
• The question of which interest groups
have a greater influence on policy
depends partly upon which party controls
the presidency.
 Political
parties
• Changes in party control of the
presidency produce significant changes in
policy.
• One result of party influence is that there
are partisan cycles of presidential action,
with different policies depending upon
which party holds office.
 Social
movements
• Social movements occasionally provide other
political-level influences on presidents.
• Mass demonstrations and protests may cause
disruption that lead presidents to take actions in
order to defuse them.
• Mass movements may produce changes in
general public opinion that, in turn, affect
presidents.
Structural Influences on the
Presidency
We can speak of an enduring presidency as a
presidency that does not merely fluctuate with the
whims of whomever holds office but reflects the
goals and preferences of the people, groups, and
institutions that make up American society.
 Like all other institutions of our national
government, the presidency reflects influences at
the political level and also structural influences.

The International System


When the international system changes, presidential policy
tends to change.
All U.S. presidents pursued a broadly similar set of foreign
policies from the end of World War II to the end of the
Cold War.
• Containment of Soviet influence
• Solidification of the Western alliance
• Encouragement of open economies
• Opposition to leftist or nationalist movements in the
developing world
• U.S. foreign polices reflected the basic features of the
international system, especially its bipolarity, with two
superpowers.
• When the Soviet Union began to move in conciliatory
directions and the Cold War ended, Presidents Reagan
and Bush responded, despite their history of intense
anti-Communism.
• The end of the Cold War gave President Clinton more
flexibility to focus on domestic issues, while still
pursuing free trade and other foreign economic policy
aims.
The Economy




All presidents must see that the economy grows and
flourishes.
A healthy economy is essential for a president’s popularity
and his continuation in office.
A strong economy is needed to generate tax receipts to
fund government programs and for maintaining social
peace and stability.
A healthy economy requires that the main investors in the
American economy continue to have confidence in the
future, which tends to benefit presidential policies that
favor such investors.
How Democratic Is the Presidency?
 Determining
how democratic the presidency
is becomes an extremely difficult task, but
the office is considerably more democratic
than envisioned by the authors of the
Constitution.