Which Reagan policies are still debated today?
About this video
John Dickerson explains that the 'Reagan revolution' changed the debate from how best to manage government to whether government should be in the conversation at all. That debate peaked in the fight between Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton, but the appetite for deficit reduction and shrinking government has since gone out of favor in Washington.
You'll be able to
- explain why Reagan's approach was called the Reagan revolution.
- describe how the debate over Reagan's ideas continued after he left office.
- explain how attention to deficit reduction has changed over time.
Key words
- Reagan revolution
- Reagan's sharp break from the way the federal government had worked in American life.
- deficit reduction
- Efforts to close the gap between what government spends and what it collects.
- out of favor
- No longer popular or seen as important.
Transcript
- [Instructor] How has the debate over Reagan's policies evolved into today?
- When Reagan was making the case for, basically, they called it the Reagan revolution, because it was a real departure from the way the federal government had been existing in American life. The debate had mostly been between Democrats and Republicans over to how best manage the government.
Ronald Reagan came in and said no. Just get government out of the conversation. That has continued to bounce along in politics, there was the most major fight on those lines with Newt Gingrich and president Bill Clinton. Since then, there have been pockets of it, but the appetite for deficit reduction, for shrinking government in order to make sure that the bills are paid by government, has kind of gone out of favor in Washington.
It was a very big deal during the '90s and during the first 10 years of this century, but it has not really been as much a part of the conversation in politics as it once was. It once dominated the way people talked about government. Now there are other things that are taking the conversation away.
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