Chapter 9

Chapter 9

The Conservative Counterrevolution in the Era of Reagan and Bush

Selected orienting events

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Reagan Administration:1980-1988

• Ascendancy of conservatism– Promoted the concept that social programs had not

solved poverty– Did not favor social programs to aid the poor– Social spending was incompatible with economic

growth– Did not support federal civil rights

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Factors That Contributed to the Ascendancy of Conservatism

• Declines strengths of Democrats• White backlash led to widespread

opposition to affirmative action• Continuing shift of population to the

suburbs• Maturing of war-baby generation

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Legitimation of Conservatism• Conservative ideology emerged• Conservative think-tank established• National TV show: ”Firing Line” presented

conservative views• Top positions in government given to conservatives• Criticism of intellectuals to Democratic Party and

Great Society reform• Grassroots following within fundamentalist

religious groups• Formation of New Religious-Political Right (NRPR)

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The Triumph of Conservatism

• Three themes of obsession of Reagan

1. Lower Taxes

2. Increase Defense

3. Social Spending Reduction

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Lower Taxes• 1981: Economic Recovery Tax Act (ERTA)

- Reduced personal and corporate taxes • Tax reform in 1986 - Drastically reduced the tax rate of affluent Americans

- Encourage economic activity• Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) of 1981

- Deep tax cuts in social spending and increase in military spending.

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Increase Defense

• “We’re not building missiles to fight a war. We’re building missiles to preserve peace.” – Reagan

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Social Spending Reduction• Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) 1981

- Eliminated 57 social programs and folding them into 7 block grants- 1983: Social Security amendments increase retirement age and reduce some benefits- Steward Mckinney Homeless Assistance Act of 1987: focus was on construction of shelters

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Social Security, Job Training, and Medicare

• Reagan was able to obtain additional cuts in social programs, to make major changes in the Social Security program and Medicare, and to create his own job-training legislation

• Reagan also encountered a funding emergency in Part A of the Medicare program, whose outlays for hospital bills had increased faster than payroll tax revenues

• The budgets of many states rose sharply in the 1980s, as they sought to address problems of family dissolution, homelessness, AIDS, and drug and crack babies; they also faced costs due to immigration from abroad, increased costs of prisons

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Bush Administration: 1988 - 1992

• Maintained defense a priority• Modest tax increase in 1990• Minimal increase in social spending• Civil Rights Act of 1991: Anti-discrimination

Act• Rodney King case: forced Bush to provide

allocation for inner-city programs

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Legacy of Reagan and Bush

• $4.5 trillion federal debt• Deficit: Reagan $50B/yr while Bush had $352 B in

1992• Economic situation of the poor worsened • Erosion of real value of paycheck• Over-all tax rates of the poor and working person

increased• Many affluent Americans increased their wealth• Labor force was gender segregated.

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Oppression of women• The women’s liberation movement was widely

blamed for depriving women of their femininity• Women encountered major political opposition in

the 1980s from conservatives• Some spokespersons for the New Right with respect

to employment of women, abortion rights, and women’s rights

• In 1990, women’s groups and their allies were able to obtain legislation that channeled some funding for child care programs to the states2.1.5

Oppression of poor and persons of color• With the loss of American industrial and unionized

jobs during the 1970s and 1980s, increasing number of workers found erosion in the real value of their paychecks

• Poor individuals suffered economically as a result of the cuts in social benefits and services of the American welfare state.

• The overall tax rates of poor and working persons increased

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The Oppression of Immigrants• The enactment of the Immigration Act of 1965 and

succeeding legislation—such as the 1975 Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act and the 1980 Refugee Act heralded a large influx of immigrants to the United States

• The number of undocumented immigrants had increased to roughly 12 million persons by 2008

• Many of these new immigrants worked under the unsafe and unregulated conditions that had existed for many of their predecessors

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The Oppression of Gay Men and Lesbians

• In the 1970s, gay men and lesbians had focused on winning civil rights with some success

• In the 1980s, they found themselves confronting AIDS

• Reagan administration was indifferent towards the epidemic of AIDS affecting gay community

• Besides fighting against AIDS, they also sought legislation in various states to outlaw different kind of discrimination and for protection of their human rights

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The Oppression of People with Disabilities

• Rehabilitation Act of 1973 led to robust movement of persons with disabilities

• Enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which barred discrimination in the workplace, housing, and public accommodations

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The Oppression of Children• Children Act of 1975 ensured mainstreaming of millions

of disabled children into the regular public schools• Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980

gave funds to the states to hire more child welfare staff• Child Welfare Act led to better foster care for many

children• With passage of the Child Care and Development Block

Grant program in 1990, children’s advocates finally obtained the first major, national child care program

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The Oppression of Aging Americans

• Rates of poverty in this population had plummeted from 35 percent to 12.8 percent between 1959 and 1989

• With the enactment of Medicare and the Older Americans Act in 1965 and the enactment of SSI and the indexing of Social Security in the early 1970s, older people obtained major new medical services, social ser- vices, and resources

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The Oppression of Homeless• Increasing numbers of individuals and families could

not afford housing because of the loss of industrialized, unionized employment in the United States during the 1980s

• The response of federal and state governments to this problem in the Reagan and Bush era was half- hearted

• Congress enacted the Stewart B. McKinney Home- less Assistance Act of 1987, but it focused its resources on construction costs for shelters and was burdened with bureaucratic delays

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Social Work Profession• The profession of social work proved remarkably resilient

during the decades after the Great Society• Membership of NASW exceeded 100,000 persons by the

mid-1980s• 1970s and 1980s in particular jurisdictions; that is, certain

local authorities ceased to specify a social work degree as a qualification for particular kinds of jobs

• Role of private practice • There was an emphasis on diversity—that is, making

social work services relevant to a range of oppressed populations, including African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, women, gay men and lesbians, and the poor

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The Evolution of the Reluctant Welfare State

• The presidencies of Reagan and Bush constituted the first major era of conservatism since the 1950s

• The United States developed a welfare state belatedly

• Reagan’s conservative counterrevolution substantially reduced domestic spending, massively increased military spending, and drastically reduced the policy roles of the federal government

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Policies that have extended beyond the 1980s

• Joint Training Partnership Act of 1982• Seven block grants• Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 in the wake of

the 1975 Indochina Migration and Ref- ugee Assistance Act and the 1980 Refugee Act

• Steward B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act of 1987• Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990• Child Care and Development Block Grant program• Major budget crises as deficits greatly increased

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Policies that have extended beyond the 1980s

• Major changes in Social Security benefits in coming years, including taxing of some benefits of affluent persons and phasing upward the retirement age to 67

• Diagnostic Related Groups—a new way to reimburse hospitals for Medicare services

• A freeze on discretionary spending by passage of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act in 1985

• Court rulings that overturned efforts of the Reagan Administration to deny SSI payments to disabled persons

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Policies that have extended beyond the 1980s

• Several court rulings that narrowed women’s rights to family-planning services and to abortion

• Civil Rights Act of 1991• Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981 and the

Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 that markedly changed American national priorities toward spending cuts, tax cuts, military spending, and deficits

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