Reagan as President 805Reagan’s tendency to depend on popular maga-
zine articles, half-remembered conversations, and
other informal sources for his economic “facts”
reflected a mental imprecision that alarmed his crit-
ics, but his sunny disposition and easygoing style
compared favorably with Carter, who seemed tight-
lipped and tense even when flashing his habitual
toothy smile. A television debate between Carter and
Reagan underscored their personal differences, but
Reagan’s question to the audience, “Are you better
off now than you were four years ago?” had more
effect on the election than any policy he said he
would pursue.
On election day the voting was light, but
Reagan received 8 million more votes than Carter.
Dissatisfaction with the economy and the unresolved
hostage crisis seem to have determined the result.
The Republicans also gained control of the Senate
and cut deeply into the Democratic majority in the
House of Representatives.
Carter devoted his last weeks in office to the con-
tinuing hostage crisis. War had broken out between
Iran and Iraq in September. The Iraqi president,
Saddam Hussein, had hoped to exploit the chaos fol-
lowing the downfall of the shah to seize oil-rich terri-
tory in Iran. Early Iraqi victories prompted the Iranians
to free the hostages in return for the release of Iranian
assets that had been frozen in the United States. After
444 days in captivity, the fifty-two hostages were set
free on January 20, the day Reagan was inaugurated.
Reagan Presidential Campaign Ad: A Bear in the
Woodsatwww.myhistorylab.com
Reagan as President
Reagan hoped to change the direction in which the
country was moving. He demanded steep reductions
in federal spending and the deficit, to be accom-
plished by cutting social expenditures such as welfare,
food stamps and student loans, and by turning many
functions of the federal government over to the
states. The marketplace, not federal bureaucratic reg-
ulations, should govern most economic decisions.
He asked Congress to lower income taxes by
30 percent. When critics objected that this would
increase the deficit, the president and his advisers rea-
soned that the tax cut would leave people with more
money, which they would invest in productive ways.
The new investment would generate more goods and
jobs—and, ultimately, taxes for the federal govern-
ment. This scheme became known as Reaganomics.
Helped by the votes of conservative Democrats,
Reagan won congressional approval of the Budget
Reconciliation Act, which reduced government
expenditures on domestic programs by $39 billion.
WatchtheVideoCongress enacted most of the tax cuts the presi-
dent had asked for, lowering individual income taxes
by 25 percent over three years, but it resisted reducing
the politically popular “entitlement” programs, such as
Social Security and Medicare, which accounted for
about half of the budget. Reagan himself refused to
reduce the military budget to bring the government’s
income more nearly in line with its outlays. Instead he
called for a military buildup to ensure that the United
States would prevail in any war with the Soviet Union,
which he called an “evil empire.” In particular, he
sought to expand and improve the nation’s nuclear
arsenal. He made no secret of his wish to create so for-
midable a nuclear force that the Soviets would have to
back down in any confrontation. The deficit worsened.
In Central America Reagan sought the overthrow
of the left-wing government of Nicaragua and theRonald Reagan rides a horse—a familiar photo opportunity for
presidents. (Recall the similar picture of LBJ on page 773.) But
Reagan was an amiable cowboy; his smile and sense of humor
were his most disarming weapons. In 1966 just after the election,
when reporters asked him what sort of governor he would be,
Reagan, a former actor, answered, “I don’t know. I’ve never played
a governor.” Three months into his presidency, moments after he
was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt, he took his
wife’s hand. “Honey,” he said, “I forgot to duck.” While being
wheeled into the operating room, he quipped to the surgeons, “I
hope you are all Republicans.”