Five The President's Program
1. Harry Anderson et al., "The U.S. Economy in Crisis," Newsweek, January 19, 1981, pp. 30-34. [BACK]
2. Elizabeth Drew, "Reporter At Large: 1980: Reagan," New Yorker, March 24, 1980, pp. 49-74 passim. [BACK]
3. "Reagan Readies the Ax," Newsweek, February 16, 1981, p. 20. [BACK]
4. Text of Reagan's February 5, 1981, speech, New York Times, February 6, 1981, p. A12. [BACK]
5. Barrett, Gambling with History, pp. 148-49. [BACK]
6. Steven Rattner, "Treasury Secretary Rejects Linking Tax Cuts to Budgetary Reductions," New York Times, February 4, 1981, p. 1. [BACK]
7. Stockman, Triumph of Politics, p. 164. [BACK]
8. Thomas C. O'Donnell, "Backing away from the cut that kills," Forbes Magazine, February 16, 1981, pp. 31-32. [BACK]
9. Stockman, Triumph of Politics, p. 93. [BACK]
10. "Carter's Farewell Budget," Newsweek, January 26, 1981, pp. 64-65. [BACK]
11. Harry Anderson, "Stockman's Ladder," Newsweek, February 9, 1981, p. 66; Barrett, Gambling with History, pp. 139-43. [BACK]
12. Stockman, Triumph of Politics, p. 96. [BACK]
13. Office of Management and Budget, Fiscal Year 1982 Budget Revisions (March 1981), Table 6, p. 13. [BACK]
14. Barrett, Gambling with History, p. 140. [BACK]
15. Stein, Presidential Economics, pp. 269-70. [BACK]
16. Barrett, Gambling with History, p. 141. [BACK]
17. Paul Craig Roberts, "'The Stockman Revolution': A Reaganite's Account," Fortune, February 22, 1982, pp. 56-58, 62-70. [BACK]
18. Greider, Education of David Stockman, p. 35. [BACK]
19. Martin Tolchin, "Budget Conferees in a Balancing Act," New York Times, March 12, 1980, p. A11. [BACK]
20. Stockman, Triumph of Politics, pp. 116-19. [BACK]
21. Ibid., pp. 112-13. [BACK]
22. Greider, Education of David Stockman, p. 13. See also Barrett, Gambling with History, pp. 196-97. [BACK]
23. David S. Broder, "Hill, Reagan Aides Eye Painful Cuts," Washington Post, January 2, 1981, pp. A1, A3. [BACK]
24. Pete V. Domenici, "The Ghosts of Deficit Forever," Washington Post, January 21, 1986, p. A15. [BACK]
25. Stockman, Triumph of Politics, p. 181. [BACK]
26. "I do not need a fight with 35 million Americans right off the bat," Stockman commented. "That would be the litmus of political stupidity." Newsweek, January 19, 1981, p. 39. [BACK]
27. "Bracing for Reagan's Cuts," Newsweek, February 23, 1981, pp. 18-20. [BACK]
28. See Robert G. Kaiser, "Deep Budget Cuts Urged for Popular Federal Programs," Washington Post, February 4, 1981, pp. A1, A4. [BACK]
29. Greider, Education of David Stockman, p. 22. [BACK]
30. Among many studies of the package's tilt, particularly good ones are: Gregory B. Mills, "The Budget: A Failure of Discipline," in John L. Palmer and Isabel V. Sawhill, eds., The Reagan Record: An Assessment of America's Changing Domestic Priorities (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1984), pp. 107-39; Palmer and Sawhill, eds., The Reagan Experiment (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute Press, 1982); Jack A. Meyer, "Budget Cuts in the Reagan Administration: A Question of Fairness," and Timothy M. Sneeding, "Is the Safety Net Still Intact," in D. Lee Bawden, ed., The Social Contract Revisited (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute Press, 1984); John C. Weicher, "The Reagan Domestic Budget Cuts: Proposals, Outcomes, and Effects," in Phillip Cagan, ed., The Impact of the Reagan Program (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1986). We base our estimate on the proposals as described in the Office of Management and Budget, Additional Details on Budget Savings (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, April 1981), and Congressional Budget Office, An Analysis of President Reagan's Budget Revisions for Fiscal Year 1982 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, March 1981), Staff Working Paper. [BACK]
31. See Jane Bryant Quinn, "A Middle Class Deal," Newsweek, March 2, 1981, p. 66, as one example. [BACK]
32. George J. Church, "Are There Limits to Compassion?" Time, April 6, 1981, pp. 12, 17. The "notch effect," well known to students of poverty programs, is unavoidable no matter where the line is drawn; whether benefits are changed or not, someone out of the program always seems disadvantaged compared to those just below him who get into the program. A good summary of effects and sources is Wendell E. Primus, "Legislative Impact of Poverty Statistics," paper prepared for the annual meeting of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, October 18-20, 1984, New Orleans. [BACK]
33. Adam Clymer, "Rise in U.S. Optimism on Economy Bolsters Reagan Support, Poll Hints," New York Times, April 30, 1981, pp. A1, B10. [BACK]
34. Darman made the point concerning the benefits distribution in a February 10 memo to the troika; Barrett, Gambling with History, p. 143. Meese took the issue so seriously that he opposed reduction of the top tax rate on unearned income (dividends, rents, interest) from 70 to 50 percent; Stockman, Triumph of Politics, p. 130. [BACK]
35. Stockman, Triumph of Politics, p. 130. [BACK]
36. Ibid. [BACK]
37. Martin Anderson, "The Objectives of the Reagan Administration's Social Welfare Policy," in D. Lee Bauden, ed., The Social Contract Revisited (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute Press, 1984), p. 17. [BACK]
38. "Budget Reform Plan," in America's New Beginning: A Program for Economic Recovery (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, February 18, 1981), p. 13. Also page 10 of "A White House Report" in the same document. [BACK]
39. See Stockman, Triumph of Politics, p. 124. [BACK]
40. Why were these "Chapter Two" proposals, in particular, dredged up at the end? Stockman doesn't tell us, and some sources don't remember the proposals brought to the cabinet on February 7 as conceptually separate. Most likely these proposals were more from OMB staff work (the "C" list) than from transition teams; because they obviously could meet stiff resistance from business constituencies, Stockman hesitated to present them. Naturally when Stockman was working from his and Gramm's list and those of Weinberger and the Senate Budget staff, the emphasis was more on social spending for Democratic constituencies; OMB staff, looking for additions, was more likely to look on the tax side because its biases were different and the other stuff had been done. [BACK]
41. Stockman, Triumph of Politics, p. 127. [BACK]
42. Ibid., p. 131. [BACK]
43. Greider, Education of David Stockman, p. 24. [BACK]
44. Drew, "Reporter at Large: 1980: Reagan," New Yorker, March 24, 1980, p. 71. [BACK]
45. Richard Halloran, "Carter Seeks $180 Billion For 1982 Military Budget," New York Times, January 16, 1981, p. B7. [BACK]
46. Congressional Budget Office, An Analysis of President Reagan's Budget Revisions for Fiscal Year 1982, Staff Working Paper (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, March 1981), p. 74. [BACK]
47. Richard Halloran, "Weinberger Begins Drive for Big Rise in Defense Budget," New York Times, March 5, 1981, pp. A1, B1O. [BACK]
48. Budget documents; "Hitting the Jackpot," The Economist, March 14, 1981, pp. 24, 27-28. [BACK]
49. "Reagan's Defense Buildup," Newsweek, March 16, 1981, p. 22. [BACK]
50. Stockman, Triumph of Politics, pp. 106-9. [BACK]
51. Ibid., pp. 132-33. [BACK]
52. Greider, Education of David Stockman, p. 36. [BACK]
53. Office of Management and Budget, Fiscal Year 1982 Budget Revisions, March 10, 1981 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office), p. 3. [BACK]
54. Stockman, Triumph of Politics, p. 125. [BACK]
55. Ibid., p. 128. [BACK]
56. Reestimates of the current policy base to a higher level of spending later forced Stockman to find another $7.1 billion by March 10 in order to attain the proposed spending ceiling of $695.5 billion in outlays. Text of Reagan's February 18, 1981, speech, and accompanying proposals, were published as America's New Beginning: A Program for Economic Recovery (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, February 18, 1981). [BACK]