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Comparing Social Security and Welfare Reform
Comparing Social Security and Welfare Reform
Ronald Reagan's effort in 1981 to reform Social Security was unsuccessful, and subsequent attempts to make changes to that program have suffered a similar fate. Around fifteen years later, Bill Clinton, in concert with a Republic congress, attempted to change the welfare system in America, bringing about successful reforms. These two initiatives implicate two efforts to change different American programs, and they had different overarching ideological agendas. What makes them significant in history, though, is the fact that one - Reagan's effort - was a major failure, while the other - Clinton's effort to change welfare - was incredibly popular and successful. Overall, Reagan failed because of the ingrained nature of Social Security and the political environment at that time, while Clinton succeeded because his policy target had a small, non-powerful group of supporters and his initiative represented low-hanging fruit from a political perspective.
Perhaps the most important reason why Reagan's effort failed was because of the political environment in which he operated, which he helped to produce. The early 1980s were a contentious time overall, and the rise of Reagan to power represented a very legitimate threat to long-term Democratic power. The Democratic Party had controlled America for most of the years from the Great Depression until after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the party reshuffling that took place thereafter. Reagan, though, had won election convincingly, and thus, Democrats were wary of his presence. He helped to contribute, as well, to an atmosphere of partisanship. As Derthick and Teles (2003) write, "Ill-conceived proposals to reduce Social Security that the administration announced in the spring of 1981 brought a savage Democratic counter-attack and made Republican politicians vulnerable on the issue for decades to...