Summary
Contents
Congress and the Nation is the most authoritative reference on congressional trends, actions, and political and policy controversies. This award-winning series documents the most fiercely debated issues in recent American politics, providing a unique retrospective analysis of the policies the U.S. Congress. Organized by policy area, each chapter contains summaries of legislative activity, including bills passed, defeated, or postponed. No other authoritative source guides readers seamlessly through the policy output of the national legislature with the breadth, depth, and authority of Congress and the Nation.
Congress and the Nation is the most authoritative reference on congressional trends, actions, and political and policy controversies. This award-winning series documents the most fiercely debated issues in recent American politics, providing a unique retrospective analysis of the policies the U.S. Congress. Organized by policy area, each chapter contains summaries of legislative activity, including bills passed, defeated, or postponed. No other authoritative source guides readers seamlessly through the policy output of the national legislature with the breadth, depth, and authority of Congress and the Nation.
Congress and the Nation is the most authoritative reference on congressional trends, actions, and political and policy controversies. This award-winning series documents the most fiercely debated issues in recent American politics, providing a unique retrospective analysis of the policies the U.S. Congress. Organized by policy area, each chapter contains summaries of legislative activity, including bills passed, defeated, or postponed. No other authoritative source guides readers seamlessly through the policy output of the national legislature with the breadth, depth, and authority of Congress and the Nation.
Agricultural Policy
Agricultural Policy
Introduction
President Reagan in 1985-88 continued to pursue the goals for U.S. agriculture that governed his farm program agenda in 1981-84. He had launched a drive in 1981 to end many Depression-era farm programs, abandoning the assumption of Roosevelt's New Deal that Washington was largely responsible for the well-being of American farmers.
The administration's agriculture proposals essentially remained the same from 1981 through 1988: to drastically cut back federal spending on agriculture and eliminate or radically revise the government's basic policies that had been in effect since the 1930s. The specific targets were government programs that guaranteed minimum prices for farm commodities, supplemented farmers' income and subsidized farmers who reduced their surplus crops.
Despite these goals, federal spending on agriculture continued to rise in the 1980s ...
