A Pause for Public Opinion
As they looked at policy to see what they could bear to concede, the Democrats watched public opinion to see what they would have to concede. The polls showed some support for the Democrats' skepticism about the tax cut. A CBS New York Times poll taken in late January pictured the public more interested in budget balance than a tax cut by an overwhelming 70 percent to 23 percent margin. Respondents (52 percent) preferred a smaller tax cut to either a larger one (24 percent) or none at all (16 percent). As many as 61 percent of respondents wanted to spend more on defense, but a Time poll taken a little earlier showed respondents doubtful that tax cuts and defense hikes could be combined with a balanced budget; when forced to choose, respondents preferred budget balance. Both polls evinced little enthusiasm for any spending cuts save welfare.[12]
Legislators had other barometers of opinion; Reagan's speeches generated a flood of mail to Congress that, combined with their own soundings back home, made them leery of opposing him. The Speaker reported that his mail and his constituents showed strong support for Reagan. But, as time passed, the margin of support in letters and from constituents diminished.
Opinion soundings told a mixed story about Reagan's own popularity,
which is what mattered if the issue were posed as for or against the president. He was quite popular, but not by the standards of new presidents. A Gallup poll showed Reagan's disapproval rating of 24 percent to be far higher than for any other president at a similar period; his 59 percent approval, moreover, was lower than that for any previous new administration.[13] Reagan's pollster, Richard Wirthlin, concluded that people were polarizing, with a strong majority favorable to the plan.
Through most of the winter Speaker O'Neill was relatively quiet. He didn't want his party to seem to be obstructing the new administration, but he did encourage hearings on the budget proposals to focus attention on their consequences. Majority leader Wright took a more public stance against the Economic Recovery Program, but he also wanted to have it both ways: accepting budget restraint but criticizing specific cuts. Some liberal Democrats saw in the Speaker's quiet and in Wright's and Jones's compromise positions "a timid leadership and a runaway Budget Committee chairman determined to sell us out in the false hope of gaining conservative votes."[14] They would criticize the leaders throughout the battles of 1981 for not allowing the chips to fall where they may. Tip O'Neill cared too much about programs not to try to save some, but knew he couldn't save them all. And so he temporized, partly due to the lingering shock of the election and partly out of a political veteran's sense that, in politics, timing is everything. Anti-Reagan trends had to be nursed, not assumed. Why not see what Jones could do?
On March 12 Jim Wright, citing poll data, wrote to his Democratic colleagues: Reagan did not really have a mandate for the policies he was proposing; the Reagan plan imposed "a grossly unfair burden on those least able to carry that burden, those Mr. Reagan describes as the 'truly needy'"; and "the people want Congress to be cooperative. They do not want it to be supine."[15] By the end of March, Democrats were rallying around the idea of a comprehensive budget alternative that would reduce the deficit by reducing the tax cut, cut spending but protect some social programs. On April 6 Jones unveiled his plan, which was supported by the double quartet of members who had been working separately on their own plans. The rationale for the alternative came two days later in a Statement on Economic Matters adopted by the House Democratic Caucus.
"For half a century," the caucus statement declared, "the Democratic Party has been an engine of equity and progress in America…. The Democratic Party has seen our American government not as an enemy, not as 'the problem,' as President Reagan said it was in his Inaugural Address, but as a necessary instrument for achieving vital public goals." Although inflation had many causes, Democrats argued that reducing spending would help and would also bring down interest rates. They
accepted the need for lowering taxes raised by inflation bracket creep, but they would not "join in any program of fiscal control that puts the main burden of fighting inflation on the backs of middle- and low-income workers [through spending cuts] while providing unprecedented benefits for the privileged few [through tax cuts]." The tax program, they argued, "is inflationary because it will stimulate demand before supply, creating enormous deficits in the process." They wanted to stimulate investment but did not trust the holders of capital; they therefore wanted business tax cuts to be more strictly targeted than in the 10-5-3 plan. They justified individual program cuts as helping curtail inflation, not as freeing market forces. The caucus statement made clear that the ultimate stake of the battle, the point where conservative Democrats like Jones and moderates like Gephardt most differed from Reagan, was the role of government. Throughout American history, "private enterprise has been strengthened, rather that hindered, by government-aided research and development, development of basic transportation facilities, and aid to small business, urban areas, and farmers."[16]
The missing piece was willingness to attack Ronald Reagan head-on. As events turned slightly in their favor in March, Democratic leaders gained confidence. The Speaker, deciding it was time to take the gloves off, scheduled a major attack in a speech before the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Council, which met the week of March 30. But it didn't happen.[17]
The president spoke to the Council on March 30. As Reagan left the Washington Hilton that afternoon, a young man named John W. Hinckley, Jr., emerged from the crowd, pulled a pistol, and began firing. Once again, violence slashed into our political body, as with John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and George Wallace. But this time the victim lived; and, unlike George Wallace, Reagan emerged from his ordeal, not hobbled, but larger than life. The nation held its breath, and Speaker O'Neill cancelled his speech.
A mad gunman, as the courts concluded, came within an inch of ending the Reagan revolution. Hinckley's story and his motives need not concern us here. The assassination attempt alone serves to remind us of the tenuousness of history. The scene was confusion; the president himself did not know that he had been shot, though he was in "paralyzing pain." Three unintended victims were seriously wounded—Secret Service Agent Tim McCarthy, patrolman Thomas Delahanty, and White House Press Secretary James Brady. Both the operation to remove the bullet from the president's lung and the subsequent recovery period were far more dangerous than the White House let on.[18] The president and his staff worked to paint a picture of stability and strength; hints of confusion and weakness, it was feared, would encourage challenge overseas.
They did not want to lose the initiative in their fight to change American government.
To demonstrate that the president and his administration were still in charge, Baker, Meese, and Deaver (on April 1, the morning after the shooting and the three-hour operation) brought Reagan the dairy price-support freeze legislation. "Hi, fellas," greeted the president, "I knew it would be too much to hope that we could skip a staff meeting."[19] He shakily signed the legislation.
Reagan used humor to reassure himself and those around him; his staff, and doctors, relayed his jokes to the general public for the same reason. "Please tell me you're Republicans," he quipped to the surgeons as he was being wheeled to the operating room; when told by Lyn Nofziger that the government was running normally, he responded, "What makes you think I'd be happy about that?"[20]
The shooting, and his brave reaction to it, garnered Reagan an extra dose of not just sympathy but also respect and awe. At a time when the polls showed his popularity beginning to slide, he received a new wave of personal support. This was not just a movie-star president but a heroic president. His pollster concluded that the event made a permanent impression on the public, creating a reservoir of good will that would go on protecting him even when his policies were controversial.[21]
As Reagan convalesced, his administration's lobbying effort had to slow, for its most effective lobbyist had to take it easy. His opponents were equally disarrayed because it would be bad form to attack a recuperating president. A muted tone would not help the Democrats rally their supporters.