The Reagan Effect: Economics and Presidential Leadership / Edition 1

by John W. Sloan

Overview

His message was simple, repeated almost like a mantra: cut taxes, cut spending, reduce bureaucracy, deregulate. His followers saw him as a conservative revolutionary; his detractors saw him as Mr. Magoo. Now that Reagan's achievements and failures have become more obvious, it is time for a new nonpartisan appraisal of his leadership and its impact on the nation. That is precisely what John Sloan delivers.

Sloan focuses especially on the questions raised in the highly polemical debates between conservatives and liberals concerning Reagan's economic policies. He gives equal time to both sides, showing how liberals were wrong in their predictions of gloom, while conservatives continue to grant Reagan more credit and status than he deserves.

The Reagan Effect reveals how the failures of the Carter administration set the stage for Reagan's success, describes how he united diverse conservative factions, and shows how Reagan's personality affected his decision-making style. In examining the economic record, it explains how Reagan persuaded Congress to pass budget and tax cuts while funding a costly defense buildup, and it analyzes the construction of a policy regime that prolonged the growth phase of the business cycle by lowering the threat of inflation. It also provides fresh insights into the Reagan administration's responsibility for the savings and loan disaster and tells how it dealt with trade imbalances.

The political success of Reagan's presidency, observes Sloan, can largely be attributed to the combined efforts of conservatives, pragmatists, and public relations experts. Reagan was a populist anti-intellectual, a former actor who knew how to deliver his message in a way that pleased his audiences, and who never allowed "the facts" to undermine his convictions. Sloan stresses that Reagan's rhetoric functioned to keep consevatives loyal while masking pragmatic compromises.

While Sloan suggests that the net effects of Reagan's presidency were positive, he is not uncritical. He contends that Reagan's ridicule of attempts to promote social justice ultimately diminish his image as a great moral leader. He also observes that effective government—such as relying on the Federal Reserve to control inflation—was an essential component in Reagan's leadership, thus contradicting the anti-government stance of many conservatives. Sloan concludes that Reagan's impact, as opposed to his rhetoric, was not to displace liberalism but to weld conservatism to it, and that neither the era of big government nor the need for effective national public policies is over.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780700609512
Publisher:	University Press of Kansas
Publication date:	05/30/1999
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 3.50(d)

Table of Contents

Preface

1. Contrasting Evaluations of the Reagan Presidency

2. Preparing the Stage for Reagan: Carter’s Failure as a Political Leader

3. Ronald Reagan and the Conservative Movement

4. President Reagan’s Administrative Formula for Political Success (and a Few Disasters)

5. The First Year: Hit the Ground Running

6. The Contributions of Tax Policy to Reagan’s Political Success

7. Unleashing a Disaster: the Reagan Administration’s Role in the Savings and Loan Debacle

8. The Reagan Administration Copes with Global Interdependence

9. Constructing a Conservative Regime for Economic Growth

10. The Reagan Presidency, Growing Inequality, and the American Dream

11. Conclusion

Notes

Index

Editorial Reviews

"A valuable addition to the debate on the legacy of the Reagan presidency."—Library Journal

"Essential reading for any historian or political scientist interested in the Reagan presidency."—American Politics Review

"Transcending ideological bias, Sloan has written an utterly convincing history of the Reagan Revolution. Sloan’s Reagan is a detached and uninformed leader who adopted a supply-side economics that did not work, who championed a conservative ideology that he regularly violated, who accelerated growing inequality without moral qualm, and who avoided hard choices in the mistaken belief that none was necessary. Nonetheless, Sloan lucidly argues, Reagan contributed significantly to the low inflation and revived competitiveness that delivered the remarkable prosperity of the past fifteen years. A must read."—Allen J. Matusow, author of Nixon’s Economy: Booms, Busts, Dollars, and Votes

"A meticulous, balanced, and revealing book about a controversial subject."—Chester J. Pach Jr., author of The Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower

"An important contribution to political debate in the United States."—James P. Pfiffner, author of The Strategic Presidency

From the Publisher

The academic community remains polarized in its assessment of U.S. economic performance during the Reagan years. Sloan (political science, Univ. of Houston) attempts to evaluate the Left and Right critiques of Reagan's economic legacy and move beyond the polemics to present a balanced evaluation of those contentious years. Sloan discusses the many pluses (low inflation, revived competitiveness, increased production) and minuses (high deficits, a widening income gap, the S & L crisis) of the Reagan presidency and concludes that Reagan was a successful political leader whose contribution to the U.S. economy was mixed but positive overall. Reagan's failure to deal with issues of social justice diminishes the claim that he was a "moral leader," but, Sloan argues, his political skill in delivering on his agenda made Reagan a successful president. A valuable addition to the debate on the legacy of the Reagan presidency.--Michael A. Genovese, Loyola Marymount Univ., Los Angeles

Library Journal

Sloan (political science, U. of Houston) assesses the views about the US president and his economic policies in light of the impact they have made. Focusing on the debates between conservatives, who hale him as a conservative revolutionary, and liberals, who think of him as Mr. Magoo, he finds that the former give him too much credit and that the latter were wrong in their predictions of gloom. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknew.com)

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