Transcript RAH Day 33 `09 Agenda carter and religion

RAH Day 33 Agenda
Goal – to understand that religion played a role in Jimmy Carter’s life and
presidency and that Reagan later became the darling of the Religious Right
and initiated a new era of conservatism
• Finish answers to questions below from p 4 reading
– 1- What role did religion play in Carter’s life?
– 2 - To what religion did Carter adhere?
– 3 - How did religion affect his presidential decisions?
– 4 - What positions on issues did evangelicals take?
– 5 - In what ways did Carter act differently from the Moral Majority?
– 6 - How might the Moral Majority affect politics and government in the
future?
• Questions from homework?
• Complete Packet P 2 about New Conservatives
• Complete p 8 re: Reagan’s policies
• Complete PSSA preparation reading activity packet p 9 and 10 by reading
pages 11-16 about the Reagan Administration’s view of government and
the economy.
Problems faced by Carter and his policies
6. Distrust of
politicians
Carter promised never to lie and made very public his Christian
faith and Christian morality
7. Energy crisis
Made speeches to encourage Americans to conserve, signed law
that created the Dept. of Energy
Signed National Energy Act – tax on gas guzzling cars, removed
price controls on oil and gas, tax credits for research into
alternative fuels
8. Troubled
economy
Called for voluntary wage and price controls, cut federal
spending, deregulated transportation and called for the Fed
Reserve Board to raise interest rates
9. discrimination
Appointed Andrew Young,a black to be UN Ambassador, Hired
blacks and women in his administration, appointed minorities to
judicial posts, required federal agencies to implement affirmative
action for hiring, but Carter supported the Court’s Bakke decision
10. Human rights
issues
Foreign policy – ended aid to brazil and Argentina and Nicaragua
because of their human rights abuses, tried to get the Shah of
Iran to use less repression and force, called forcefully for the
USSR to respect human rights
11. Panama Canal
Carter pushed hard to improve relations with Latin America by
pushing the Senate to approve two treaties that would give the
Canal back to Panama and would allow the US to use force to
defend the neutrality of the Canal Zone – both passed by one
vote
12. Cold War
Tensions
SALT II treaty worked on, but was withdrawn from Senate
consideration when USSR invaded Afghanistan, US withdrew from
1980 summer games in Moscow and placed grain embargo on
USSR to protest Afghan war, normalized relations with China
13. Middle East
Tensions
Brought Sadat of Egypt and Begin of Israel to Camp David to sign
a peace deal ending the state of war b/t the two countries; Iran
revolution ousted Shah and took 52 Americans hostage at US
embassy in Tehran
1 - What role did religion play in Carter’s life? He was a born-again
Christian which he claimed gave him inner peace, confidence and a
focus on morality, family and marriage
2 - To what religion did Carter adhere? Evangelical Christianity
3 - How did religion affect his presidential decisions? He claims that
it guided him to focus on human rights, focus on family,
strengthening families and marriage through speeches and leadership
and to focus civil rights issues
4 - What positions on issues did evangelicals take? Prayer in school,
money for Christian schools (vouchers) opposed abortion,
homosexuality, gay rights and the ERA
5 - In what ways did Carter act differently from the Moral Majority?
Carter was pro-choice, pro-equal treatment for women, blacks, gays
and believed in secular education
6 - How might the Moral Majority affect politics and government in
the future? Focus on hot-button issues like abortion and gay rights to
bring out voters, vote as a large block for conservative candidates
like Reagan.
The New Conservatives – membership CRQ5
5. The conservative coalition is not a monolithic all-powerful single
institution. It is a collection and an uneasy marriage of the political and
economic conservatives of 1964 Republic presidential nominee Barry
Goldwaterites who want small federal government, few social welfare
programs and low taxes and few regulations on businesses with social
conservatives who want morality-based laws. This joining of forces
came as a reaction to the increase in the federal government power and
social welfare expansion of the great society coupled with the excesses
and instability of the liberal sixties social movements and cultural
changes of the counter-culture manifesting themselves in the megeneration excesses of the 70s.
Together, the social and politico-economic conservatives planned on
taking over the government and local, state and national levels and
direct the US towards better morals, better values enacted into laws,
while weakening the federal government’s power over the states and
businesses.
This alliance then got many people to the polls in 1980 to elect the
conservative Ronald Reagan as President and a Republican Senate
The New Conservatives – goals CRQ6
6. The conservative coalition had a variety of disparate goals:
Cut taxes, deregulate businesses, change or repeal lots of social
welfare programs, weaken civil rights legislation, allow the states
to be less regulated by the federal government, strengthen the
military, build more prisons, stronger drug laws, weaker gun laws,
end desegregation programs, fight communism, weaken
environmental laws and the EPA, control inflation.
Outlaw abortion, put prayer back in school, criminalize gay
behavior, oppose the Equal Rights Amendment and women’s
liberation, post the10 Commandments in public places, oppose
teaching evolution, outlaw pornography, make divorce harder to
get, fight against out of wedlock births
Evangelism defined by National Association
of Evangelicals
• We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible,
authoritative Word of God.
• We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three
persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
• We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin
birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and
atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection,
in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His
personal return in power and glory.
• We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful people,
regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.
Conservative Movement
Individuals – religious leaders Groups
Jerry Falwell – Moral Majority, Inc. Conservative Coalition
and Liberty U
Pat Robertson - Christian Coalition,
New Right
Christian Broadcasting (700 Club)
Evangelicals
Jimmy Swaggart
Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition founded
1988
Billy Graham
Jim Bakker
Ideological conservatives
William F Buckley - National
Review
William Kristol – The Weekly
Standard
Richard Viguerie
Moral Majority, Inc. – founded in 1979 by
Falwell – disbanded in 1989 and replaced by
James Dobson’s Focus on the Family
Republican Party
Think Tanks – American Enterprise
Institute, Heritage Foundation, CATO
Institute
Phyllis Schlaffly – opposed ERA
Universities – Bob Jones U, Liberty U,
Pepperdine U, Oral Roberts U
Paul Weyrich – founded Heritage
Business groups
Foundation
Positions on Issues –
1. opposed to abortion,
2. promote traditional family
structures,
10. promoting federal funding for
religious schools,
11. stronger national defense,
3. oppose gun control,
12. opposed divorce,
4. oppose ERA,
13. gov’t power to local and state
governments.
5. wanted to shrink or abolish
entitlement programs like
welfare, Social Security,
Medicare and medicaid,
6. opposed integration and busing,
7. promoted prayer in school,
8. cutting taxes,
9. reducing government
regulations on businesses,
p 8 - Conservative Policies Under Reagan and Bush -
Goal: stimulate economy
Reaganomics
Method: cut gov’t spending on social programs and lowered income taxes
Result: Slashed poverty programs like Women, Infant and Child (WIC)
program cut even though 22% of all US children lived in poverty, cut school
lunch program and student loans.
No spending on AIDS research until after 1986
Massive Tax cuts for the rich - top tax rate decreased from 70% in 1980 to
50% in 1982 to 28% in 1988 while the tax rate for the median income
1980 – 28%, 1982 - 29%, 1988 – 28%
Gap between rich and poor got wider, cities got poorer
Little change in SS & Medicare
Recession until 1982, then significant GDP growth to 1989, decrease in
inflation, increase in jobs, wages, and confidence in economy
Massive increase in national debt and federal government yearly deficits,
Trade deficit
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Reagan’s solutions to the above problems
Supply-Side economics = Reaganomics
Cut gov’t spending, especially entitlement programs
Cut taxes, especially on businesses and the wealthy
Simplify the depreciation schedule
Cut business regulations including environmental enforcement
Improve monetary policy
Promote confidence in the US
Keynesian policy
Cut and limit government activity related to business
Government
$$$ - welfare, jobs,
housing subsidies, food
stamps
Producer/supplier of
goods and services
Consumer of goods
and services
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Reagan’s solutions to the above problems
Supply-Side economics = Reaganomics
Cut gov’t spending, especially entitlement programs
Cut taxes, especially on businesses and the wealthy
Simplify the depreciation schedule
Cut business regulations including environmental enforcement
Improve monetary policy
Promote confidence in the US
Cut and limit government activity related to business
Supply side policy
Government
Business tax
cuts, investment
tax cuts,
Producer/supplier of
deregulation,
goods and services
lower interest
rates
Trickle
$$$
Down
Consumer of goods
and services
p 8 - Conservative Policies Under Reagan
and Bush
Goal: stimulate economy
Method: increase spending on military
Result: new weapons systems like MX nuclear missile, the B-1 longrange bomber
Plans for the Strategic Defense Initiative SDI otherwise known as Star
Wars
Huge budget deficits and national debt increases
Goal: promote traditional values and morality
Method: naming conservative judges to federal judiciary
Results: overturned or weakened laws about abortion (but it remained
legal today), affirmative action, civil rights for women, criminal rights
and discrimination protections (especially for gays and women)
Other methods – pushing for tougher laws against drugs, indecency
p 8 - Conservative Policies Under Reagan
and Bush
Goal: reduce the size and power of federal gov’t
Method: deregulate savings and loan industry (and other
industries)
Results: huge screw up in the S and L industry leading to massive
bankruptcies of these institutions and the FSLIC bailout of over
$200 billion
Increases in mergers and acquisitions leading to massive new
companies but also new innovations and competition leading to
lowered prices and better products
Method: cut EPA
Result: severe decrease in environmental prosecutions, increased
logging, grazing and mining and sale of public lands leading to
increased pollution and habitat loss