Reaganomics on Trial

Archive Report

Economic Plan Under Attack

Sliding Economy's Spillover in to Politics

For most of 1981, it appeared that President Reagan would spend his first anniversary in the White House basking in the glow of victory. Dominating Congress like no president since Lyndon B. Johnson, perhaps even Franklin D. Roosevelt, Reagan had won passage of virtually his entire package of legislative proposals. Federal spending for social services and “categorical” grants (see Vocabulary, p. 5) to state and local governments were slashed, defense spending was increased, and the largest tax cut in American history, estimated at $750 billion over five years, was enacted.

Yet as the Jan. 20 anniversary date approaches, President Reagan finds himself the target of the slings and arrows of political fortune. Many Democrats who had pulled ...

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