YouTube Transcript:
26 1 Reagan
Skip watching entire videos - get the full transcript, search for keywords, and copy with one click.
Share:
Video Transcript
welcome to our reagan revolution lecture
well in the 1980s as you can tell from
the slide by the end of this one you
should be able to explain
supply-side economics also known as reaganomics
reaganomics
and what was the purpose of reagan's
famous address at the brandenburg gate
of the berlin wall which we'll be
watching a clip of
what was the iran-contra scandal and why
did much of the nation
not want to address the hiv aids crisis
in his first inaugural address reagan
proclaimed that quote government is not
the solution to the problem government
is the problem but reagan focused less
on eliminating government
than on redirecting it to new goals his
administration embraced
supply-side economic theories so while
post-world war ii keynesian economics
had focused on stimulating consumer
demand supply side economics argued that
lower personal and corporate tax rates
would ensure greater private investment
and then production
and then the resulting wealth was
supposed to reach lower income
groups through job creation and higher
wages basically if you take less in
taxes from the rich
they will then spend that money and that
will create the economic activity that
will eventually benefit the working poor
so that's the way this is supposed to
work critics called it
trickle down economics vice president
george h.w bush had belittled it as
voodoo economics in the 1980 republican primaries
primaries
supply side conservative economist
arthur lafleur predicted that these
lower tax rates regenerate
so much extra economic activity that
federal tax revenues would actually
increase despite the lower tax rates so
what they're betting is they're going to
cut taxes but they'll actually
increase government revenue because
they're going to create so much new
economic activity with those lower taxes
so basically massive tax cuts would pay
for themselves through all this
increased economic growth
reagan touted the so-called laughter
curve as you see here
as justification for his tax cut plan
which was a departure from traditional
conservative economics remember
republicans under kennedy's presidency
had blocked tax cuts if they would add
to an already
present deficit and therefore add to the debt
debt
on march 30th 1981 reagan survived an
assassination attempt by a mentally
unstable young man named john hinckley
and public support swelled for the
hospitalized president
congress approved a 675 billion dollar
tax cut in july of 1981
with significant democrat support the
bill reduced
overall federal taxes by more than one quarter
quarter
during the 1980 campaign reagan had
sought support from organized labor
which traditionally had backed the
democratic party
all the way back to wilson the
professional air traffic controllers
organization or patco however
endorsed reagan after he reached out and
convinced the group that he was the best
politician for them
but when patko went on strike reagan
ordered the union's air traffic
controllers back to work without having
their grievances met
and he then fired more than 11 000 who
refused to return to work
reagan's actions crippled patco and left
the american labor movement reeling
his policies enhanced the economic power
of corporations and high-income
households who benefited
and congress approved reagan's request
for 1.2 trillion dollars in new military spending
spending
but this combination of lower taxes but
spending increases caused the national
debt to balloon
by the end of reagan's first term it
equaled 53
of the gross domestic product the gdp up
from 33
in 1981 which is particularly bad
because reagan had promised to curb spending
spending
and we often judge presidents based on
what they promise to do or what they're
going to try to do when they're campaigning
campaigning
versus what they try to do or actually
get done once they're in office
the united states experienced a severe
economic recession in 1981 and 82.
unemployment rose to nearly 11 the
highest percent
at that time since the great depression
and of course a lot of this is still
kind of that hangover
from the oil shocks we saw earlier in
the previous decade
reductions in social welfare spending
meant that poor americans
felt the impact of this recession far
more than they had in previous times
reagan had reduced funding for food
stamps and aid to families with
dependent children the nation's welfare
program at the time
he had removed a half million people
from the supplemental social security
program for the physically disabled
so these were people whose own doctors
and the government's doctors had
certified as
disabled but the reagan administration
made it even more difficult to qualify
for these disability payments and so
they were then
kicked off of that system then reagan received
received
bipartisan rebuke meaning criticism from
both republicans and democrats both
parties in 1981
when he proposed cuts to social security
benefits for early retirees so social
security disability he's already cut
now he's going after regular social
security and this strikes some people
as bad in part because when he
campaigned he campaigned largely
against the great society programs he
was fine with the new deal programs like
social security but now he's trying to
cut that too
the senate voted unanimously to condemn
reagan's plan
and so a humbled white house worked with
the democratic speaker of the house tip o'neill
o'neill
and in 1982 they passed a bill that
restored 98 billion dollars of the
previous year's tax cuts
democrats campaigned on the fairness
issue that reagan's policies favored the
most fortunate americans
and that those tax cuts were not paying
for themselves and certainly not paying
for the increases in spending we were
seeing during his administration
they won 26 house seats in the midterms
so we always expect the president's
party to lose seats in the midterms
that's just typically
how these things work but 26 seats is a
pretty decent loss
ever the consummate politician reagan
quickly adjusted to the political
setbacks of 1982.
he appointed a bipartisan panel to
consider changes to social security
which recommended a one-time delay in
cost-of-living increases
a new requirement that government
employees pay into the system as well
and a gradual increase in the retirement
age from 65 to 67.
congress quickly passed the bipartisan
recommendations into law
and the president also benefited from an
economic rebound unemployment dropped to
seven and a half percent in 1984.
that's still high but it's better than
it had been by a long shot
the harsh medicine of high interest
rates that had been begun by carter but
continued by reagan
had finally helped lower inflation to
three and a half percent
while campaigning for re-election in
1984 reagan pointed to the improving
economy as
evidence that it was mourning again in
america that was his slogan
most conservatives ignored the debt
increase and tax hikes and supported him
and walter mondale secured the
democratic nomination in 1984 and he
chose new york representative geraldine
ferrero as his running mate and as you
can see here
she is the first woman on a major
party's presidential ticket
mondale and ferreira suffered a crushing
defeat in the general election
check out that map where reagan won 49
of the 50 states with 58.8 percent of
the popular vote and i mentioned this
again with fdr
that even though he won the overwhelming
majority of that map
still more than a third of the country
voted against him so same thing for
reagan he wins 49 out of 50 states but
with 58 percent of the popular vote
so we shouldn't misinterpret an
electoral college map as
accurately representing the feel of the
nation in response to this 1984 loss
a group of centrist democrats formed the
democratic leadership
council to try to push the democratic
party further to the right
believing that that's what was needed in
order to win future elections
reagan entered his second term with a
much stronger mandate than in 1981
because he won those 49 states
but the gop makeover of washington stalled
stalled
reagan had wanted to end means-tested
social welfare programs meaning
assistance or aid for only the extremely
poor so means tested
means the government is looking at what
means you have do you have any money do
you have anything you could sell do you
have someone else you could go live with
rather than relying on government aid
but the democrats regained control of
the senate 1986 and they blocked several
of these measures
democrats and republicans occasionally
passed compromises which i know
today it sounds like they could never do
but they've done it like the tax reform
act of 1986.
it lowered the top corporate tax rate
from 46
down to 34 and it reduced the highest
marginal income tax rate from
50 percent to 28
it also simplified the tax code by
eliminating numerous loopholes which
were supposed to kind of raise the
effective tax rate
in 1986 reagan also signed into law the
immigration reform and control act
to address the millions of undocumented
immigrants already inside the united states
states
and to try to limit future unsanctioned migration
migration
now this law provided a path to
citizenship for undocumented immigrants
and nearly 3 million undocumented
workers received legal status
one of reagan's most far-reaching
victories occurred through judicial
appointments he named 368 district and
federal appeals court judges during his
two terms
and almost all of his appointees were
white men
seven were black 15 were latino and two
were asian
out of 368. reagan also appointed three
supreme court justices
sandra day o'connor who to the dismay of
the religious right turned out to be a
moderate but she is the first woman on
the court a major achievement
anthony kennedy a solidly conservative
catholic who occasionally sided with the court's
court's
liberal wing and art conservative
antonin scalia
now many african americans saw the new
right led by reagan
as hostile to their aspirations during
reagan's last year in office the
african-american poverty rate was 31.6 percent
percent
as opposed to 10 percent for white
americans black unemployment remained
double that of white americans and the
median income for black families was 21 000
000
42 below white households
and then when the 1965 voting rights act
came up for renewal reagan's justice
department pushed the president to oppose
oppose
any extension of it so this is the law
that makes it easier for people to register
register
even if they're in states that don't
like black people voting
only the intervention of more moderate
congressional republicans
saved the voting rights act from the
republican leadership that was becoming more
more
rigidly against black civil rights and
black voting rights
wealthy americans thrived thanks to the
policies of the new right but reckless
speculation and
deregulation drove the stock market upward
upward
right until the crash of october 19 1987.
1987.
on black monday the market plunged 800
points erasing 13
of its value investors lost more than
500 billion dollars
and an additional financial crisis
loomed in the savings and loan
industry so this is something that had
been deregulated under the reagan
administration in 1982 reagan had signed
a bill increasing the amount of federal
insurance available
to savings and loan depositors making
this type of investment more popular
but that bill also allowed snls those
savings and loan depositors to engage in
high risk loans and investments
so basically reagan offered them
government-backed insurance
for riskier investments and so they made
those riskier investments and when
they failed the federal government was
on the hook
by the late 1980s the savings and loans
industry regularly failed and the 1982
law left the government responsible for
bailing them out
at an eventual cost of 132 billion dollars
dollars
meanwhile the cold war still raged and
reagan denounced the soviet union as an
evil empire that would end up on the ash
heap of history
his reagan doctrine declared that the
u.s would supply aid to anti-communist forces
forces
everywhere in the world now remember
there's this larger argument should the
united states be supporting
anti-democratic forces as long as
they're anti-communist
or should there be more um emphasis on
human rights
and self-representation federal spending
on defense risks from 171 billion
dollars in 1981 to 229 billion in 1985
responsible for much of the increase in
federal debt under reagan
in march of 1983 reagan announced plans
for a strategic defense
initiative a space-based system that
could shoot down incoming soviet missiles
missiles
critics derided the program as a star
wars fantasy and it was more talk than reality
reality
congressional democrats opposed reagan's
policies on their merits
but some congressional republicans were
wary of his fondness for circumventing
congress for going around them
in the late 1970s nicaragua had a civil
war in which the u.s supported the
right-wing government over communist rebels
rebels
the problem was the right-wing
government's national guard engaged in
human rights abuses and
executed abc reporter bill stewart an american
american
on camera doesn't really look good for
the u.s to support a government that
does that
carter had cut off aid to this
right-wing government which eventually
lost the civil war in 1979.
the communist or marxist sandinistas
took power and they held elections
now the contras formed from members of
that old national guard that had
violated the human rights
and they fled to honduras and received
funds from the cia
they were also involved in trafficking
cocaine that's the other way they made money
money
so the contras launched a campaign of
terror to disrupt the new elected
government attacking and destroying
health centers and schools
with u.s government support so congress
once again says this looks
terrible the us government is funding
terrorism so in 1982 the house voted 411-2-0
411-2-0
to approve the boland amendment which
barred the u.s from supplying
funds to the contras in their fight
against the communist sandinista
government in nicaragua
so congress says even if they're
fighting communists we cannot support
these people because of their human
rights abuses and their terrorism
reagan overlooked the country's brutal
tactics and terror attacks because they
opposed communism he held them as the quote
quote
moral equivalent of the founding fathers
at the same time saddam hussein's iraq
had invaded iran
now the reagan administration did not
want either of those nations iraq or
iran to secure control of the entire oil rich
rich
region so they aided both sides of that war
war
at first when iran looked like it would
face imminent defeat
the administration provided secret arms
deals to iran which they also used to
get around that boland amendment and congress
congress
and all those laws preventing aid to the
contras so this is how it worked
national security advisor robert
mcfarland and national security council
member oliver
north raised money to support the
contras by selling american missiles to iran
iran
and then funneling the money to the
contras in honduras
later when iraq seemed on the verge of
defeat the reagan administration had the
cia give them high-class intel including
satellite imagery of the iran-iraq border
border
and they allowed american-made arms to
be sold in baghdad
so the u.s will aid both sides of that
war to keep it going
so that neither side wins control of
that entire oil-rich region and
the reagan administration uses that conflict
conflict
to have iran basically give american money
money
to the contras in violation of the
boland amendment
so the illegal iran-contra scheme was
revealed in 1986
and the president's underlings had
violated the boland amendment and made a
mockery of reagan's declaration that
america will never make concessions to terrorists
terrorists
so remember they're literally funding
terrorists in nicaragua
and they're also paying money to the
iranian government that had been holding
americans hostage
just two years earlier while the iran
contra affair generated comparisons to
the watergate scandal
investigators were never able to prove
reagan knew about the operation
and we'll be hearing more about that in
just a minute so
now you're going to proceed to the next
two clips in the lecture the first is
this satirical song remember
our definition of satire making fun of
the iran contra affair
is from the cartoon american dad how
often do you get to watch cartoons in class
class
enjoy uh the second is reagan's most
famous speech at the brandenburg gate
where kennedy gave his ich bin ein
berliner speech
so take a look at those two and then
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
Works with YouTube, Coursera, Udemy and more educational platforms
Get Instant Transcripts: Just Edit the Domain in Your Address Bar!
YouTube
←
→
↻
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc
YoutubeToText
←
→
↻
https://youtubetotext.net/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc