Initially, the diplomatic initiatives of President Carter and Secretary Vance were quite successful. In , the Administration completed the process begun during the Nixon Administration and normalized relations with mainland China.
President Carter himself facilitated the Camp David Peace Accords between Israel and Egypt, which paved the way for new progress in the Middle East and an end to the long-running hostilities between the two sides.
Carter and Vance also persuaded the Senate to consent to a treaty promising to return the Panama Canal to Panamanian control by Social and cultural issues presented yet another challenge for the president. The organization registered an estimated two million new voters in Reagan also cultivated the religious right by denouncing abortion and endorsing prayer in school. The candidate held his first post—nominating convention rally at the Neshoba County Fair near Philadelphia, Mississippi, the town where three civil rights workers had been murdered in And like Wallace, he attracted blue-collar workers in droves.
Reagan did so during their only debate by appearing calm and amiable. Independent John Anderson captured 7 percent. Ronald Reagan secured the presidency by appealing to the growing conservatism of much of the country.
In line with that goal, his administration embraced supply-side economic theories that had recently gained popularity among the New Right.
While the postwar gospel of Keynesian economics had focused on stimulating consumer demand, supply-side economics held that lower personal and corporate tax rates would encourage greater private investment and production.
Conservative economist Arthur Laffer predicted that lower tax rates would generate so much economic activity that federal tax revenues would actually increase. The Reagan administration received credit for bringing the hostages home. This group photograph shows the former hostages in the hospital in before being released back to the United States.
The tax cut faced early skepticism from Democrats and even some Republicans. Vice president George H. Reagan aggressively and effectively lobbied individual members of Congress for support on the measure.
Then on March 30, , Reagan survived an assassination attempt by a mentally unstable young man named John Hinckley. Public support swelled for the hospitalized president. The bill reduced overall federal taxes by more than one quarter and lowered the top marginal rate from 70 percent to 50 percent, with the bottom rate dropping from 14 percent to 11 percent.
It also slashed the rate on capital gains from 28 percent to 20 percent. For the rest of the s the economic terrain of the United States—already unfavorable to union organizing—shifted decisively in favor of employers. The unionized portion of the private-sector workforce fell from 20 percent in to 12 percent in The new administration appeared to be flying high in the fall of , but developments challenged the rosy economic forecasts emanating from the White House.
Meanwhile, Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker continued his policy from the Carter years of combating inflation by maintaining high interest rates, which surpassed 20 percent in June As a result, the United States experienced a severe economic recession in and Unemployment rose to nearly 11 percent, the highest figure since the Great Depression. The Senate voted unanimously to condemn the plan, and Democrats framed it as a heartless attack on the elderly. President Ronald Reagan, a master of the photo op, appears here with a row of American flags at his back at a rally for Senator David Durenberger in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
National Archives Reagan nimbly adjusted to the political setbacks of Following the rejection of his social security proposals, Reagan appointed a bipartisan panel to consider changes to the program. In early , the commission recommended a onetime delay in cost-of-living increases, a new requirement that government employees pay into the system, and a gradual increase in the retirement age from sixty-five to sixty-seven.
The commission also proposed raising state and federal payroll taxes, with the new revenue poured into a trust fund that would transform social security from a pay-as-you-go system to one with significant reserves. The president also benefited from an economic rebound. Real disposable income rose 2. Most conservatives ignored the debt increase and tax hikes of the previous two years and rallied around the president.
The Democratic Party, on other hand, stood at an ideological crossroads in In so doing, they conceded significant political ground to supply-siders and conservative opponents of the welfare state. Many Democrats, however, were not prepared to abandon their New Deal heritage, and so the ideological tension within the party played out in the primary campaign.
Jackson offered a largely progressive program but won only two states. Reagan captured forty-nine of fifty states, winning The future of the party belonged to post—New Deal liberals like Hart and to the constituency that supported him in the primaries: upwardly mobile, white professionals and suburbanites.
In February , a group of centrists formed the Democratic Leadership Council DLC as a vehicle for distancing the party from organized labor and Keynesian economics while cultivating the business community.
The Democrats regained control of the Senate in , and Democratic opposition prevented Reagan from eliminating means-tested social welfare programs, although Congress failed to increase benefit levels for welfare programs or raise the minimum wage, decreasing the real value of those benefits. Democrats and Republicans occasionally fashioned legislative compromises, as with the Tax Reform Act of The bill lowered the top corporate tax rate from 46 percent to 34 percent and reduced the highest marginal income tax rate from 50 percent to 28 percent, while also simplifying the tax code and eliminating numerous loopholes.
American policy makers hoped to do two things: deal with the millions of undocumented immigrants already in the United States while simultaneously choking off future unsanctioned migration. The former goal was achieved nearly three million undocumented workers received legal status but the latter proved elusive. He named district and federal appeals court judges during his two terms.
Bork, a federal judge and former Yale University law professor, was a staunch conservative. He had opposed the Civil Rights Act, affirmative action, and the Roe v. Wade decision. Black Americans achieved significant advances in politics, culture, and socioeconomic status. A trend from the late s and s continued and Black politicians gained control of major municipal governments across the country during the s.
Jesse Jackson, pictured here in , was only the second African American to mount a national campaign for the presidency. His work as a civil rights activist garnered him a significant following in the African American community but never enough to secure the Democratic nomination. Only the intervention of more moderate congressional Republicans saved the law.
The administration also initiated a plan to rescind federal affirmative action rules. Despite the conservative tenor of the country, diversity programs were firmly entrenched in the corporate world by the end of the decade.
Americans increasingly embraced racial diversity as a positive value but most often approached the issue through an individualistic—not a systemic—framework. Certain federal policies disproportionately affected racial minorities.
Spending cuts enacted by Reagan and congressional Republicans shrank Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Medicaid, food stamps, school lunch programs, and job training programs that provided crucial support to African American households. Never in that time have black economic rights been under such powerful attack.
Homicide was the leading cause of death for Black males between ages fifteen and twenty-four, occurring at a rate six times that of other groups.
Ironically, such fear could by itself spark violence. In December a thirty-seven-year-old white engineer, Bernard Goetz, shot and seriously wounded four Black teenagers on a New York City subway car. The so-called Subway Vigilante suspected that the young men—armed with screwdrivers—planned to rob him. Pollsters found that 90 percent of white New Yorkers sympathized with Goetz.
The explosive growth of mass incarceration exacted a heavy toll on African American communities long into the twenty-first century. It was under these circumstances that Sadat made the surprising decision in November to travel to Jerusalem. The Carter administration was sidelined for much of this period when Egypt and Israel conducted bilateral talks but it very soon became apparent that without U. By the end of January , Egyptian-Israeli talks had suddenly ended and each side began blaming the other for this failure, resuming an all too familiar pattern of mutual recriminations.
With tensions escalating and negotiations in crisis, Carter invited a despondent Sadat to visit Camp David the next month. Far from working towards the comprehensive peace he had initially sought, Carter had now resolved to mediate between Egypt and Israel but still held hope that others could be brought in later if a broad framework for peace could be negotiated.
Talks continued on and off until July when Sadat became so frustrated over the progress of negotiations that he suspended all future talks and contacts with Israel. At this critical time, Carter made the consequential decision to invite Sadat and Begin to join him at Camp David for a tripartite summit.
From September 5thth , the Egyptian, Israeli, and American delegations met at Camp David in a final attempt to reach some sort of agreement.
By bringing Begin and Sadat together in the serene, mountaintop retreat of Camp David, Carter believed the Egyptians and Israelis would be able to conclude negotiations since the two principals would be leading the talks and they would be doing so in an environment where they would be sheltered from the scrutiny of the public and the media.
The heated and angry exchanges between the two leaders revealed to Carter that direct, face-to-face talks were actually counter-productive and from then on Carter and the U. Throughout the summit, he effectively used the prospect of American aid and friendship as leverage to induce the parties to offer concessions and maintain diplomatic flexibility.
The outcome from this remarkable adventure in summitry was the grand bargain — the Camp David Accords. The Accords involved two framework agreements that were very weakly linked to one another. Carter initially defended Lance, but was later driven to ask for his resignation. In , Carter brokered two U. The resulting Camp David Accords ended the state of war between the two nations that had existed since Israel was founded in In July , Carter called a special summit with national leaders at Camp David.
In November , a mob of Iranian students stormed the U. Carter stood firm in the tense standoff that followed, but his failure to free the hostages during the Iran hostage crisis led his government to be perceived as inept and inefficient; this perception increased after the failure of a secret U. Despite sagging approval ratings, Carter was able to defeat a challenge by Senator Edward Kennedy to win the Democratic nomination in He was defeated by a large margin in the general election that year by Ronald Reagan , a former actor and governor of California who argued during his campaign that the problem facing the country was not a lack of public confidence, but a need for new leadership.
With his wife Rosalynn, Carter established the nonprofit, nonpartisan Carter Center in Atlanta in In the decades that followed, he continued his diplomatic activities in many conflict-ridden countries around the globe. In alone, Carter negotiated with North Korea to end their nuclear weapons program, worked in Haiti to ensure a peaceful transfer of government and brokered a temporary ceasefire between Bosnian Serbs and Muslims.
Carter has also built homes for the poor with the organization Habitat for Humanity and worked as a professor at Emory University. He is the author of numerous books, the topics of which range from his views on the Middle East to memories of his childhood; they also include a historical novel and a collection of poetry.
In , Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The prize committee cited his role in helping forge the Camp David accord between Israel and Egypt during his presidency, as well as his ongoing work with the Carter Center. In , Carter announced he had been diagnosed with cancer that had metastasized.
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