8.10 Reading Quiz

Jimmy Carter: The Outsider as President

1. Carter won the Democratic nomination in 1976. Trading on Watergate and his down-home image, Carter pledged to restore morality to the White House. Carter defeated Ford 2. Carter inexperienced. Carter relied on inexperienced advisers from Georgia, leading to relations with congressional leaders. 3. Carter was an economic conservative. Deregulating airline, trucking and railroad industries stimulated competition and cut prices, drove firms out of business and hurt unionized workers. These efforts proved ineffective at reigniting economic growth. 4. Iranian Revolution curtailed oil supplies, and gas prices jumped. Carter's approval rating had fallen below 30 percent

D. Urban Crisis and Suburban Revolt

1. Middle-class flight to the suburbs continued apace, "urban crisis" of the 1960s spilled into the "era of limits." Facing huge price inflation and mounting piles of debt—to finance social services for the poor and to replace disappearing tax revenue—nearly every major American city struggled to pay its bills in the 1970s. 2. New York, the nation's financial capital and its largest city, nearly went bankrupt in 1975. 3. reason: continued loss of residents and businesses to nearby suburbs. 4. Suburbanization and the economic crisis combined powerfully into tax revolt. Ex California's Proposition 13, an initiative that would roll back property taxes, cap future increases for present owners, + require all tax measures have a 2/3 majority in the legislature. 5. Proposition 13 hobbled public spending, inspired tax revolts across the country, and helped conservatives define an enduring issue: low taxes. 6. Income inequalities widened again as the U.S. labor market divided into a vast, low-wage market at the bottom and a much narrower high-wage market at the top, with the middle squeezed smaller and smaller

Energy Crisis

1. Once the world's leading producer, the United States had become heavily dependent on imported oil, Persian Gulf. 2. Middle Eastern states threw off the remnants of European colonialism, demanded concessions for access to fields. 1960 the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). 3. Conflict between Israel and the neighboring Arab states of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan politicized OPEC. 1973 Yom Kippur War, Egypt and Syria invade Israel regain territory lost in the conflict. Israel prevailed, resupplied by an emergency American airlift. 4. Resentful of American support for Israel, the Arab states in OPEC declared an oil embargo in October 1973. 5. US scrambled to meet energy needs in oil shortage. Congress imposed a national speed limit of 55 miles an hour to conserve fuel, and Americans began to buy fuel-efficient foreign cars. 6. Sales of American cars slumped. 1/6 of jobs generated by the auto industry 7. raging inflation set off by the oil shortage; prices of basic necessities rose by nearly 20 percent in 1974 alone

tax revolt

a dramatic reversal of the postwar spirit of generous public investment.

Silent Spring

a stunning analysis of the impact of the pesticide DDT on the food chain

Nuclear Power

a. 1974, U.S. utility companies operating forty-two nuclear power plants, with more planned. Environmentalists publicized other dangers of nuclear power: a meltdown would be catastrophic, in slow motion, might be radioactive wastes. b. confirmed in March 1979, reactor core at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, close to meltdown. enabled environmentalists to win the battle over nuclear energy. c. After Three Mile Island, no new nuclear plants were authorized. Today, nuclear reactors account for 20% of all U.S. power

Organized Labor in Decline

a. Deindustrialization threw many blue-collar workers out of well-paid union jobs. b. Deindustrialization dealt blow to the labor movement, which had facilitated the postwar expansion of that middle class. c. Instead of seeking higher wages, unions now mainly fought to save jobs. Union membership decline. With labor's decline, a main buttress of the New Deal coming undone.

Political Realignment

a. Democratic gains in 1974, liberalism proved unable to stop runaway inflation or speed up economic growth. Conservatives in Congress used this opening to articulate alternatives, especially economic deregulation and tax cuts. b. Deindustrialization in the Northeast and Midwest and continued population growth in the Sunbelt shifted power toward the West and South

The Watergate Affair

a. June 1972, five men with connections to the Nixon administration arrested for breaking into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate complex in Washington D.C. b. broad pattern of abuse of power by a White House obsessed with his enemies, including the establishment of a clandestine intelligence group hired to plug government information leaks. c. Nixon could have fired the burglars but instead paid them bribes to keep quiet and instructed the CIA to stop the FBI investigation. d. May 1973, the Senate Watergate committee held televised hearings, administration officials implicated Nixon in the illegal cover-up. e. In June 1974, the House Judiciary Committee voted on several articles of impeachment against Nixon: obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and subverting the Constitution. f. Facing conviction in the Senate, on August 9, 1974, Nixon became the first U.S. president to resign. g. VP Gerald Ford new president; a month later, he granted Nixon a "full, free, and absolute" pardon. h. Congress adopted several reforms in response to the Watergate affair, such as the War Powers Act (1973) and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (1978) i. Nixon's resignation also contributed to increased voter apathy and to the Republic Party becoming more conservative

Watergate Babies

a. Seventy-five young and reform-minded Democrats, dubbed the "Watergate babies," joined the House after the 1974 midterm elections, made Watergate and Ford's pardon of Nixon their top issues. b. Democratic majorities in both houses eliminate House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)m reduced the number of votes needed to end a filibuster from 67 to 60. Democrats dismantled the existing committee structure, which had entrenched power in the hands of a few elite committee chairs, and passed the Ethics in Government Act. c. post-Watergate reforms made government less efficient and more susceptible to special interests—the opposite intended. A diffuse power structure actually gave lobbyists more places to exert influence. Influence shifted to party leaders and with little incentive to compromise, the parties grew more rigid, and bi-partisanship became rare

Environmental Protection Agency

a. energy crisis drove home realization that the earth's resources were not limitless. b. environmental movement offshoot of sixties activism, but had historical precedents. received a hefty push back in 1962 when biologist Rachael Carson published Silent Spring. c. In 1970, on the heels of the Santa Barbara oil spill, burning of the Cuyahoga River, and planned construction of an airport in the Everglades, Americans celebrated the first Earth Day, and Congress passed the National Environmental Policy Act d. Clean Air Act, the Occupational Health and Safety Act, the Water Pollution Control Act, and the Endangered Species Act. e. Corporations resented environmental regulations, as did many of their workers, tightened standards threatened their jobs. 1980s, environmentalism divided Americans

Deindustrialization

a. long-term economic problems, growing federal deficit and spiraling inflation owing to government spending on the Vietnam War and the Great Society. industrial competition from West Germany and Japan, and America's share of world trade dropped b. highlighted a transformation in the United States: from an industrial-manufacturing economy to a postindustrial-service one. c.the devastating combination of unemployment, stagnant consumer demand, and inflation—stagflation—-resulted in a noticeable decline in the standard of living for ordinary Americans. None of the three presidents of the decade—Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter—had much luck tackling stagflation. d. Nixon's New Economic Policy. Ford's Whip Inflation Now (WIN) campaign Carter's policies were similarly ineffective. e. America's economic woes struck hard at industrial sector, began to be dismantled. Worst was steel industry, as foreign steel flooded into the United States during the 1970s. f. deindustrialization. The country was in the throes of an economic transformation that left it largely stripped of its industrial base. In addition to steel producers, manufacturers of automobiles, tires, textiles, and other durable goods closed plants

National Environmental Policy Act

created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Nixon's New Economic Policy

imposing temporary price and wage controls in 1971 in an effort to curb inflation and removing the United States from the gold standard, did not address the underlying weaknesses in the U.S. economy

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

oil-rich developing countries formed a cartel,

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (1978)

prohibiting domestic wiretapping without a warrant.

War Powers Act (1973)

reining in the president's ability to deploy U.S. forces without congressional approval

Ford's Whip Inflation Now (WIN)

urging Americans to cut food waste and to do more with less, was noble but deeply unpopular