Ronald Reagan as a Leader

That mandate is specific: To control inflation, to reduce unnecessary governmental interference in private lives and in business, to reassert America's prominence in the world. That is all there is to it, and that is plenty (Rosenblatt n.p.)

Indeed, that was more than enough. Outgoing President Jimmy Carter had been elected on much the same mandate in 1976 and had failed miserably. Or, more to the point, it was the perception of the American electorate that Carter had been an ineffective national leader. During his term Carter spoke of a "national malaise" (Schaller 19), wore frumpy sweaters as his response to an energy crunch, appeared indecisive and, in the words of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, could only "lurch from crisis to crisis" (Schaller 21). To which candidate Reagan utilized his actor's background and answered directly to the television cameras: "I cannot and will not stand by while inflation and joblessness destroy the dignity of our people" (Schaller 27), "it is time we recognize that ours, in truth, [is] a noble cause" (Schaller 29). During the 1980 presidential elections, President Jimmy

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bstitute for substantive, voter-offending action: attrition. Simply put, for programs, policies and departments he did not think the government should be involved with (Education, Housing & Urban Development, Interior et al.), Reagan all but ignored them. Or encouraged their congressional vilification. While the watered down "spending cut" legislation negotiated in '81-'82 as the Gramm-Latta bill incorporated almost 1,000 pages of "pork barrel" local exemptions (Stockman 214-215), the Reagan Administration allowed such entities as the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) to be hit with slashing budget cuts (Schaller 50). Deregulation of certain areas of the economy had begun under the Carter Administration - the airline industry, for example. Regulation enforcement, or not, is an area of government where the Executive Branch has much discretion and relatively little congressional interference. The Reagan Administration accelerated this process, notably in the fields of Environment, Banking, Credit and Savings & Loan deregulation. This latter industry would come back to haunt the American economy, as flagrant abuses of th
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Approximate Word count = 2558
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)