Chapter 40
The Resurgence of
Conservatism,
1980–1992
I. The Election of Ronald Reagan,
1980
– Reagan’s philosophy:
• Sided with the New Right on social issues
• He denounced the activist government and failed
“social engineering” of the 1960s
• He championed the “forgotten man” against big
business
• He championed the “common man” against big
government
• He condemned federal intervention in local affairs
– Favoritism for minorities
– Elitism of arrogant bureaucrats
The Election of Ronald Reagan
1980 (cont.)
• Aimed to win over from the Democratic column
– Working-class and lower-middle-class white voters
• Drew on the ideas of the “neoconservatives”
– Championed free-market capitalism liberated from
government restraints
– Took tough, harshly anti-Soviet positions in foreign policy
– Questioned liberal welfare programs and affirmative-action
policies
– Called for the reassertion of traditional values of
individualism and the centrality of the family
• Was president of the Screen Actors Guild in the
McCarthy era of the early 1950s:
» Where he helped purge communists and suspected
“reds” from the film industry
The Election of Ronald Reagan
1980 (cont.)
• In 1954 he became a spokesman for General Electric
and began to abandon his New Dealish political views
– Increasingly preached a conservative, antigovernment line
• Jimmy Carter’s administration struck many Americans
as bungling and befuddled
– Disaffection with Carter in his own Democratic party
– “ABC” (Anybody but Carter)
– Liberals turned to Senator Edward Kennedy
• Republican candidate Reagan
– He attacked the incumbent’s fumbling performance in
foreign policy
– Blasted the “big-government” philosophy
– Carter’s spotty record was no defense against Reagan’s
popular appeal
The Election of Ronald Reagan
1980 (cont.)
– Election results:
• 51% of the popular vote for Reagan, 41% for Carter
• 7% voted for liberal Republican congressman John
Anderson
• Electoral count 489 for Reagan; 49 for Carter
• First elected president to be unseated by voters since
Herbert Hoover in 1932 (see Map 40.1)
• Republicans gained control of the Senate for the first
time in twenty-six years
– Carter’s farewell address:
• Stressed his effort to scale down the deadly arm race
• To promote human rights
The Election of Ronald Reagan
1980 (cont.)
• To protect the environment
• He signed a bill preserving some 100 million acres of
Alaska land for national parks, forests, and wildlife
refuges
• He was hampered by his lack of management talent
and badly buffeted by events beyond his control
• Later admired for his humanitarian and human rights
activities
• He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
p943
Map 40-1 p944
II. The Reagan Revolution
• Reagan’s arrival in Washington was triumphal
– The Iranians released the hostages on Reagan’s
Inauguration Day, January 20, 1981, after 444
days of captivity
– Reagan’s ideas:
• Devoted to fiscal fitness and a leaner federal
government
• Sought to dismantle the welfare state and reversal of
the political evolution of the past
• Assembled a cabinet of “the best and the rightest”
II. The Reagan Revolution
(cont.)
• He took dead aim at the bloated federal budget
• His conservative crusade for:
–
–
–
–
Smaller government
Less bureaucracy
Freer markets
He found an ally in Conservative Margaret Thatcher, Great
Britain’s Prime Minister:
» She worked to reduce the power of labor
» And government involvement in business
» Two of Reagan’s chief goals.
– They strengthened the Anglo-American alliance of foreign
policy
– Their common refrain was, “Free markets make free
people”
II. The Reagan Revolution
(cont.)
– That shrinking government meant keeping their nations
safer from communism.
• Federal budget:
– 1970s and 1980s; federal spending increased to nearly 23%
– Shifted from defense to entitlement programs, including
Social Security and Medicare (see chart in Appendix)
– 1973 the Department of Health, Education, Welfare
surpassed the Department of Defense
• Proposition 13:
– California tax revolt in 1978
– Slashed property taxes
– Forced painful cuts in government services.
II. Reagan Revolution
– Reagan’s smaller-government policies:
• Proposed a new federal budget of $35 billion cuts:
– Mostly in social programs—food stamps
– Federally funded job-training centers
• Wooed a group of mostly southern conservative
Democrats (dubbed boil weevils) who abandoned
their own party’s leadership to follow the president
• The new president seemed strong and motivated
– Especially after an assassination attempt in March 1981
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p945
III. The Battle of the Budget
– Congress swallowed Reagan’s budget proposals
– Second part of his economic program called for
• Substantial reductions in marginal tax rates over a
three year period
• Congress approved a set of far-reaching tax reforms
– Lowered individual tax rates
– Reduced federal estate taxes
– Created new tax-free savings plans for small investors
• Reagan’s supply-side economics:
– The combination of budgetary discipline and tax reduction
would stimulate new investment, boost productivity, foster
dramatic economic growth, and eventually reduce the
federal budget.
III. The Battle of the Budget
(cont.)
– Economy slid into a deep recession:
• Unemployment reached 11%
• Businesses folded
• Bank failures jolted the nation’s entire financial
system
• Automobile industry turned in its dimmest
performance in history
• Democrats became very angry at the president’s cuts:
– The anti-inflationary “tight money” policies that led to the
so-called “Reagan recession” of 1981-1982 had been
launched by the Federal Reserve Board in 1979, on Carter’s
watch.
III. The Battle of the Budget
(cont.)
• Reaganomics:
– Supply-side economic policies:
• Healthy economic recovery in 1983
• First time in the 20th century income gaps widened
between the richest and the poorest Americans
• Symbolic was the emergence of “yuppies,” young,
urban professionals
– Made a new religion out of conspicuous consumption
– About 1.5 million people, yuppies showcased the values of
materialism and the pursuit of wealth that came to
symbolize the high-rolling 1980s.
III. The Battle of the Budget
(cont.)
• Source of economic upturn
– Massive military expenditures:
• Reagan cascaded $2 trillion dollars to the Pentagon in
the 1980s
• Asserting the need to close a “window of
vulnerability” in the armaments race with the Soviet
Union
• Federal budget deficits topped $100 billion in 1982
• Massive government borrowing to cover those
deficits kept interest rates high
• Turned the value of the dollar to record altitudes in
the international money markets.
IV. Reagan Renews the Cold War
– Reagan denounced the Soviet Union as the
“focus of evil in the modern world.”
• Believed in negotiating with the Soviets—but only
from a position of overwhelming strength
• How—by enormously expanding U.S. military
capabilities
• He announced his intention to pursue a hightechnology missile-defense system called Strategic
Defense Initiative (SDI)—popularly called Star Wars
– Plan called for orbiting battle stations in space that could
fire laser beams or other concentrated energy to vaporize
intercontinental missiles on liftoff
IV. Reagan Renews the Cold War
(cont.)
– SDI fit Reagan’s overall Soviet strategy
• Relations with the Soviets were strained in 1981 by
– “Solidarity” in Poland, a popular movement of working
people organized into a massive union which was clamped
down by martial law
– Reagan imposed economic sanctions on Poland and the
USSR alike
– Dealing with the Soviets was additionally complicated by
the inertia and ill health of the aging oligarchs in the Kremlin
» Three of whom died between late 1982 and early 1985
– Relations grew worse in September 1983—the Soviets
blasted a Korean passenger airline that had inexplicably
violated Soviet airspace
» Hundreds were killed, including some Americans, when
the plane plummeted into the frigid Sea of Okhotsk.
IV. Reagan Renews the Cold War
(cont.)
– By the end of 1983, all arms-control negotiations with the
Soviets were broken off
– The deepening chill of the Cold War was further felt in 1984
» When the USSR and Soviet-bloc athletes boycotted the
Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
p946
V. Troubles Abroad
• The volatile Middle Eastern pot continued to
boil ominously
– Israel strained its bonds of friendship with U.S.
• Allowed new settlements to be established in the
occupied territory of the Jordan River’s West Bank
(see Map 40.2)
• Israel in June 1982 invaded neighboring Lebanon
– Seeking to suppress all the guerilla bases from which
Palestinian fighters harassed beleaguered Israel
– Reagan was obliged to send American troops to Lebanon in
1983 as part of an international peacekeeping force, but
their presence did not bring peace
V. Troubles Abroad
(cont.)
– A suicide bomber crashed an explosive-laden truck into a
U.S. Marine barracks on October 23, 1983, killing two
marines.
– Reagan withdrew the remaining American troops
– Reagan’s Democratic opponents called him the “Teflon
president,” to whom nothing hurtful could stick
– Central America
• Leftist revolution deposed the long-time dictator of
Nicaragua in 1979
• Sandinistas, anti-American revolutionaries, were
accused by Reagan of using Nicaragua as a base for
Soviet and Cuban military penetration of all of Central
America.
V. Trouble Abroad
(cont.)
• Reagan’s administration officials claimed that
Nicaraguan leftists were shipping weapons to
revolutionary forces in El Salvador
• Reagan sent military “advisers” to prop up the proAmerican government in El Salvador
• Provided covert aid, including the CIA-engineered
mining of harbors, to the rebel contras
– Who opposed the anti-American government of Nicaragua
• In October 1983 he dispatched a heavy-firepower
invasion force on the island of Grenada:
– Where a military coup killed the prime minister
– Brought Marxists to power
– Americans swiftly took care of the situation (see Map 40.3)
VI. Round Two for Reagan
– Election of 1984:
• Reagan met little opposition for a second White
House term in 1984
• Democratic candidate was Walter Mondale
– Made history by naming as his vice-presidential running
mate Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro of New York
– First woman ever to appear on a major-party presidential
ticket
– Mondale’s candidacy was tainted by being the vicepresident under Carter
• Election results:
– Reagan: 525 electoral votes to Mondale 13—winning all but
Mondale’s home state Minnesota and District of Columbia
– Popular vote Reagan-52,609,797; Mondale-36,450,613.
VI. Round Two for Reagan
(cont.)
• Reagan
– First term objectives:
• Shrinking the federal government
• Reducing taxes
– Second term
• Foreign policy
• Found himself contending with the charismatic Soviet
Mikhail Gorbachev, installed as chairman of the Soviet
Communist party March 1985.
VI. Round Two for Reagan
(cont.)
– Gorbachev:
• Personable, energetic, imaginative, committed to
radical reform in the Soviet Union
• Glasnost –“openness”:
– Aimed to ventilate the secretive, repressive stuffiness
– Introduced free speech and a measure of political liberty
• Perestroika—“restructuring”:
– Intended to revive the moribund Soviet economy
– By adopting many free-market practices—profit motive and
an end to subsidized prices—of the capitalist West
• These two programs required the Soviet Union:
– Shrink its enormous military machine
– Redirect its energies to the dismal civilian economy
VI. Round Two for Reagan
(cont.)
– Required an end to the Cold War
• Gorbachev made overtures to the West
– Including an announcement in April 1985; they would cease
to deploy intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) targeted
at Western Europe
– Pending an agreement on their complete elimination
– He pushed this goal while meeting with Reagan at first of
four summit meetings, in Geneva, November 1985
– Second summit, Reykjavik, Iceland, in October 1986, Reagan
stormed out convinced Gorbachev wanted to end SDI
– Third summit, Washington, D.C. in December, 1987, the two
leaders signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF)
Treaty:
» Banning all of these missiles from Europe
VI. Round Two for Reagan
(cont.)
– Final summit, Moscow, in May 1988 they capped their new
friendship and joined together to end the Cold War
– For this, history would give both leaders high marks.
– Other moves in foreign policy by Reagan:
• Provided strong backing for Corazon Aquino’s ouster
of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Philippines, February
1986
• Ordered a lighting air raid against Libya in 1986, in
retaliation for alleged Libyan sponsorship of terrorist
attacks, including a bomb blast in a West Berlin discotheque that killed a U.S. serviceman.
Map 40-2 p948
Map 40-3 p949
p950
VII. The Iran-Contra Imbroglio
– Two foreign-policy problems seemed insoluble to
Reagan:
• The continuing captivity of a number of American
hostages, seized by Muslims extremist groups in
bleeding, battered Lebanon
• The continuing grip on power of the left-wing
Sandinista government in Nicaragua
– Reagan repeatedly requested to provide military aid to the
contra rebels fighting against the Sandinista regime
– Congress repeatedly refused
– Some Washington officials saw the linkage between the two
thorny problems of the Middle Eastern hostages and the
Central American Sandinistas.
VII. The Iran-Contra Imbroglio
(cont.)
• In 1985 American diplomats secretly arranged arms
sales to Iran
• In return, the Iranians helped obtain the release of at
least one American hostage held by Middle Eastern
terrorists; the money Iran paid was then diverted to
Nicaraguan rebels
• These actions brazenly violated a congressional ban
on military aid to the Nicaraguan rebels
– Not to mention Reagan’s repeated vow that he would never
negotiate with the terrorists.
– Washington continued to support Iraqi dictator Saddam
Hussein, to whom it sold weapons used against Iran
– News broke of these secret dealings in November 1986
VII. The Iran-Contra Imbroglio
(cont.)
• The Iran-Contra affair:
– Cast a dark shadow over the Reagan record on
foreign policy
– Tending to obscure the president’s outstanding
achievement in establishing a new relationship
with the Soviet Union
• Reagan remained among the most popular and
beloved presidents in modern American history.
p950
VIII. Reagan’s Economic Legacy
– Reagan vowed to invigorate the American
economy by:
• Rolling back government regulations
• Lowering taxes
• Balancing the budget
– He did:
• Ease many regulations
• Push major tax reform bills through Congress 1981,
1986
• But a balanced budget remained grotesquely out of
reach.
VIII. Reagan’s Economic Legacy
(cont.)
– Supply-side economics:
• Promised lower taxes would actually increase
revenue—would stimulate the economy
• But, the combination of tax reduction and increased
military spending opened a vast “revenue hole” of
$200 billion annual deficits.
• In Reagan’s eight years he added $2 trillion to the
national debt (see Figure 40.1)
• The deficits represented an economic failure, they
also constituted a kind of political triumph.
VIII. Reagan’s Economic Legacy
(cont.)
– Reagan’s goals:
• Ambition to slow the growth of government
• Block or repeal the social programs launched in
Johnson’s Great Society
• His high political objective:
– The containment of the welfare state
– Ensured the long-term perpetuation of his dearest political
values
• Another legacy of the 1980s:
– A sharp reversal of a long-term trend toward a more
equitable distribution of income and increasing squeeze on
the middle class
IX. The Religious Right
– Religion pervaded American politics in the
1980s:
• Conspicuous was a coalition of conservative,
evangelical Christians—the religious right
• Moral Majority
– A political organization founded by Jerry Falwell in 1979
– He preached against sexual permissiveness, abortion,
feminism, and the spread of gay rights
– The first years, the Moral Majority registered between 2 and
3 million votes
– It became aggressive political advocate of conservative
causes.
IX. The Religious Right
(cont.)
– Religious right:
• Were sometimes called “movement conservatives”
• They were a reflection of, or answer to, sixties
radicalism.
• What had in the past been personal matters—gender
roles, homosexuality, and prayer—became the
organizing ground for a powerful political movement
• They practiced a form of “identity politics”
• They declared themselves Christian or pro-life voters
• If the left had consciousness-raising sessions, the
religious rights had prayer meetings
IX. The Religious Right
(cont.)
• Adherents articulated their positions in a language of
rights and entitlements, as in the “right-to life” (or
anti-abortion) movement
• They even mirrored the tactics of civil disobedience
– Protesters in 1960s blocked entrances to abortion clinics.
Figure 40-1 p952
Figure 40-2 p953
p953
X. Conservatism in the Courts
– The courts became Reagan’s principal instrument
in the “cultural wars” demanded by the religious
right:
• Before leaving office, Reagan appointed a nearmajority of all sitting judges
• He named three conservative-minded justices:
– Sandra Day O’Connor, September 25, 1981, first woman
– Reaganism repudiated two great icons of the
liberal political culture:
• Affirmative action and abortion
X. Conservatism in the Courts
(cont.)
• Court showed its newly conservative colors in:
– Ward’s Cove Packing v. Antonia and Martin v. Wilks; the
Court made it difficult to prove that an employer practiced
racial discrimination in hiring and made it easier for white
males to argue that they were the victims of reverse
discrimination by employers who followed affirmative
action practices
– Congress passed legislation in 1991 that partially reversed
the effects of those decisions
• The contentious issue of abortion reached the Court
in 1989:
– Roe v. Wade major case for pro-choice advocates for
abortion rights
X. Conservatism in the Courts
(cont.)
– Roman Catholics and “right-to-life” groups wanted a
virtually absolute ban on all abortions
– In Webster v. Reproductive Health Services the Court in July
1989 did not entirely overturn Roe , but it seriously
compromised Roe’s protection of abortion rights
– By approving a Missouri law that imposed certain
restrictions on abortion, the Court signaled that it was
inviting the states to legislate in an area in which the Court
had previously forbidden them to legislate
– The Court renewed that invitation in Planned Parenthood v.
Casey 1992 when it ruled that states could restrict access to
abortion, not placing an “undue burden” on the woman
p954
XI. Referendum on Reaganism in 1988
– Republicans lost control of the Senate in 1986
• The newly Democratic majority Senate in 1987
rejected an ultraconservative nominee for the
Supreme Court
• Democrats wanted to make hay over the Iran-Contra
affairs and signs of economic trouble:
– “Double mountain” of deficits– the federal budget deficit
and international trade deficit—continued to grow
ominously
– Savings and Loan (S&L) institutions needed massive federal
help to the tune of $500 billion
– American banks found themselves holding near-worthless
loans foisted on Third World countries, especially Latin
America.
XI. Referendum on Reaganism in
1988 (cont.)
– Black Monday, October 19, 1987
• Leading stock-market index plunged 508 points
• According to Newsweek this crash heralded “the final
collapse of the money culture. . ., the death knell of
the 1980’s”
– “Seven Dwarfs” a pack of Democratic
presidential candidates:
• Forerunner was Gary Hart, in May 1987 was forced to
drop out after charges of sexual misconduct
• African American Jesse Jackson campaigned
energetically
XI. Referendum on Reaganism in
1988 (cont.)
• Michael Dukakis, governor of Massachusetts, finally
became the Democratic candidate
– Republicans nominated Reagan’s Vice-president
George H. W. Bush
• Ran largely on the Reagan record
– Election results:
• Bush popular votes: 47,946,422 and 41,016,429 for
Dukakis
• Electoral College count was 426 to 111.
XII. George H. W. Bush and the End of
the Cold War
• George H.W. Bush’s deepest commitment
was to public service
– Served as a congressman, emissary to China,
ambassador to the United Nations, director of
the Central Intelligence Agency and vicepresident
– Capped his long political career when he was
inaugurated president in January 1989,
promising a “kinder, gentler America”
– In the communist bloc it seemed the season of
democracy had arrived
XII. George H.W. Bush and the End
of the Cold War (cont.)
• China:
– Prodemocracy demonstrations thronged through Beijing’s
Tiananmen Square spring 1989
– By June China’s aging autocratic rulers brutally crushed the
prodemocracy movement
– Bush insisted on maintaining normal relations with Beijing
• Eastern Europe:
– Long oppressed by puppet regimes propped up by Soviets
– Solidarity movement in Poland led the way by topping the
Poland’s communist government in August, 1989
– Communist regimes collapsed in Hungary, Czechoslovakia,
East Germany, and hyperrepressive Romania
– In December 1898, jubilant Germans danced atop the hated
Berlin Wall, symbol of a divided country
XII. George H.W. Bush and the End
of the Cold War (cont.)
– The wall itself soon came down, heralding the imminent end
of the 45-year-long Cold War
– Germany, divided since 1945, was at last reunited October,
1990.
• Most amazing of all changes was the Soviet Union
itself:
– Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost and perestroika set
in motion the process
– Old-guard hard-lines tried to dislodge Gorbachev with a
military coup in August 1991
– With the help of Boris Yeltsin Gorbachev foiled the plotters.
– In December 1991 Gorbachev resigned as Soviet president
– He had become a leader without a country as the Soviet
Union dissolved into its component parts.
XII. George H.W. Bush and the End
of the Cold War (cont.)
– The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
• Fifteen republics loosely confederated
• Russia the most powerful state and Yeltsin the
dominant leader
• CIS repudiated communism and embraced
democratic reforms and a free-market economy (see
Map 40.4)
• The demise of the Soviet Union wrote a definitive
finish to the Cold War era
• Bush spoke of a “new world order” where democracy
would reign and diplomacy would supersede
weaponry.
XII. George H.W. Bush and the End
of the Cold War (cont.)
– Rankling questions remained:
• Who would honor arms control agreements with the
United States?
• Which of the successor states of the former Soviet
Union would take command of the formidable Soviet
nuclear arsenal?
– Answer when President Bush, in one of his last official acts,
signed the START II accord with Boris Yeltsin, committing
both powers to reduce their long-range nuclear arsenals by
2\3 within ten years.
XII. George H.W. Bush and the End
of the Cold War
– The new Eastern landscape
• Conflict erupted in the Russian Caucasus in 1999,
when the Chechnyan minority tried to declare their
independence
• Ethnic warfare flared in other disintegrating
communist countries, notably Yugoslavia, which was
racked by vicious “ethnic cleansing” campaigns
against various minorities
– The end of the Cold War proved a mixed blessing
for the United States
• Only period that U.S. had consistently pursued an
international foreign policy
XII. George H.W. Bush and the End
of the Cold War (cont.)
• What principles would guide American diplomacy
now that “anticommunism” lost its relevance?
–
–
–
–
The economic impact of military cutbacks
Closing of 34 military bases
Cancelation of $52 billion order for a navy attack plane
Communities that had been drenched with Pentagon dollars
nearly dried up
– The problem of weaning the U.S. economy from its decades
of dependence on defense spending tempered the euphoria
of Americans as they welcomed the Cold War’s longawaited finale.
• Elsewhere in the world, democracy marched
triumphantly
p955
p956
p956
Map 40-4 p957
p958
XIII. The Persian Gulf Crisis
– The end of the Cold War did not mean the end of
all wars:
• United States in Panama in December 1989, when
Bush sent airborne troops to capture dictator and
drug lord Manuel Noriega
• August 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein sent his armies to
overrun Kuwait
– Iraq needed Kuwait’s oil to pay its huge war bills
– Saddam wanted ironfisted control over the Persian Gulf
– He dreamed of dictating the terms of oil supplies to the
industrial nations and perhaps totally extinguishing the
Arabs’ enemy, Israel.
XIII. The Persian Gulf Crisis
(cont.)
• American policymakers helped build Saddam’s
military machine into a formidable force
• On August 2, 1990, Saddam’s army roared into Kuwait
• The United Nations Security Council condemned the
invasion on August 3 and demanded the immediate
and unconditional withdrawal of Iraq’s troops
• The Security Council sent an ultimatum for Saddam to
leave Kuwait by January 15, 1991, or U.N. forces
would “use all necessary means” to expel his troops
• The United States spearheaded a massive
international military deployment on the Arabian
Peninsula
XIII. The Persian Gulf Crisis
(cont.)
• January 15 deadline approached; 539,000 U.S.
soldiers, sailors, and pilots swarmed into the Persian
Gulf region
• They were joined by 270,000 forces from 28 other
countries in the coalition opposed to Iraq
• When all diplomatic efforts failed, Congress voted
regretfully on January 12 to approve the use of force
• On January 16 the time bomb of war ticked off its last
beats
• The United States and its U.N. allies unleashed their
air attack for 37 days
• Iraq responded by launching several dozen “Scud”
missiles into Saudi Arabia and Israel
XIII. The Persian Gulf Crisis
(cont.)
• Saddam had everything to launch massive warfare
• American general Norman (“Stormin’ Norman”)
Schwarzkopf took nothing for granted dealing with
Saddam or Iraq
– His strategy was to soften the Iraqis with relentless
bombing, then suffocate them on the ground with a tidal
rush of troops and armor
• On February 23 the dreaded and long-awaited land
war began—Operation Desert Storm
– It lasted only four days—the “hundred-hour war” (see Map
40.5)
– Allied casualties were amazingly light, whereas much of
Iraq’s remaining fighting force was quickly destroyed or
captured. On February 27 Saddam accepted a cease-fire.
XIII. The Persian Gulf Crisis
(cont.)
• Kuwait was liberated
• Saddam had survived to menace the world another
day
p960
Map 40-5 p960
XIV. Bush on the Home Front
• Bush’s legislative actions:
– Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act
(ADA) in 1990
• A landmark law prohibiting discrimination against the
43 million U.S. citizens with physical or mental
disabilities
– Signed a major water projects bill in 1992
• Reformed the distribution of subsidized federal water
in the West:
– The bill put the interests of environment ahead of
agriculture, especially in California’s heavily irrigated
Central Valley, and made much more water available to the
West’s thirsty cities.
XIV. Bush on the Home Front
(cont.)
– The explosive “social issues”:
• 1990 Bush’s Department of Education challenged the
legality of college scholarships targeted for racial
minorities
– In 1991 he grudgingly accepted a water-down civil rights bill
– 1991 Bush nominated for the Supreme Court
• African American Clarence Thomas, a stern critic of
affirmative action
• His nomination was loudly opposed by liberal groups,
organized labor, the NAACP and the National
Organization for Women (NOW)
XIV. Bush on the Home Front
(cont.)
• The Senate Judiciary Committee concluded its
hearings on the nominations with a divided 7-7 vote
• Forwarded it on to the full Senate without a
recommendation
• One day before the Senate was scheduled to vote in
October, 1991, the press leaked the story of Anita Hill,
accusing Thomas of sexual harassment
• The Senate was forced to reopen its hearings
• The Senate voted 52-48 votes to confirm Thomas, the
second African American on the supreme bench
(Thurgood Marshall was the first)
XIV. Bush on the Home Front
(cont.)
– The social issues that had helped produce three
Republican presidential victories in the 1980s
were losing some of their electoral appeal
– Many women grew increasingly critical of the
president’s uncompromising stand on abortion
– A “gender gap” opened between two political
parties as pro-choice women grew cold toward
the strong anti-abortion stand of the Republicans
XIV. Bush on the Home Front
(cont.)
– More damaging to President Bush’s political
health was the economy:
• By 1992 the unemployment rate exceeded 7%
• The federal budget deficit topped at $250 billion
– In 1990 Bush agreed to a budget increase that included
$133 billion in new taxes
• Bush’s 1990 tax and budget package added up to a
political catastrophe
• In his 1988 presidential campaign, Bush had
belligerently declared, “Read my lips—no new taxes”
• Now he had flagrantly broken that campaign promise.
p961
p963