Reaganomics

The arguments over the economic policies of the Reagan Administration will continue until sufficient time has elapsed for a consensus to be possible. In the meantime, it is necessary for contemporary scholars to record their opinions as a base for the consensus. Campagna has recorded his conclusions based on considerable research on Reagan Administration policies. He begins by describing what was planned by the government. From there, he discusses what actually happened, and devotes the remainder of the work to his opinion of what has been left with which the future must deal. Campagna concludes that the Reagan economic policies failed. He establishes a position for others to attack or defend in their own publications in the continuing argument.

The economic legacy of the Reagan presidency is the subject of this collection of contrasting essays. Noting the sharp disagreements that have termed Reaganomics either an economic miracle or an economic disaster waiting to happen, the editors and contributors provide an analysis of the empirical evidence on a number of issues: supply-side economics, monetary policy, foreign trade, and the regulatory environment. Each formal study is complemented with either a competing study, or a commentary that offers an alternative perspective. A final essay synthesizes the divergent theories to arrive at a tentative conclusion.

James Carville famously reminded Bill Clinton throughout 1992 that "it's the economy, stupid." Yet, for the last forty years, historians of modern America have ignored the economy to focus on cultural, social, and political themes, from the birth of modern feminism to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Now a scholar has stepped forward to place the economy back in its rightful place, at the center of his historical narrative. In More, Robert M. Collins reexamines the history of the United States from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Bill Clinton, focusing on the federal government's determined pursuit of economic growth. After tracing the emergence of growth as a priority during FDR's presidency, Collins explores the record of successive administrations, highlighting both their success in fostering growth and its partisan uses. Collins reveals that the obsession with growth appears not only as a matter of policy, but as an expression of Cold War ideology--both a means to pay for the arms build-up and proof of the superiority of the United States' market economy. But under Johnson, this enthusiasm sparked a crisis: spending on Vietnam unleashed runaway inflation, while the nation struggled with the moral consequences of its prosperity, reflected in books such as John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. More continues up to the end of the 1990s, as Collins explains the real impact of Reagan's policies and astutely assesses Clinton's "disciplined growthmanship," which combined deficit reduction and a relaxed but watchful monetary policy by the Federal Reserve. Writing with eloquence and analytical clarity, Robert M. Collins offers a startlingly new framework for understanding the history of postwar America.

In this definitive biography, a former "Washington Post" White House correspondent has completely updated the information to reflect an additional nine years' perspective on Reagan's life and legacy.

Supporters of the Reagan presidency claim that the "Reagan Revolution" defeated inflation, reduced the role of government, rehabilitated the authority of the states and local government, and established a sensible balance between industrial progress and environmental protection. Opponents assert that these policies increased the national debt by more than $1 trillion, gutted social programs, and created a "trickle-down" economy that increased unemployment, insecurity, homelessness, and the percentage of Americans living at or below the poverty level. Both positions are argued by Reagan aides and scholars of the era.