Eisenhower, Dwight (Administration)

DWIGHT DAVID EISENHOWER (1890–1969) was the first Republican to win the presidency since Herbert Hoover's election in 1928. Because of Eisenhower's enormous popularity, resulting from his successful leadership in World War II as supreme allied commander in Europe and an engaging personality, most were convinced that “Ike,” as he was affectionately called, could have secured the Republican or Democratic presidential nominations in 1952. Yet, despite President Harry Truman's efforts to convince him to run as a Democrat, Eisenhower ran as a Republican because his views were more in keeping with those of the Republican Party, and he felt that running as a Republican would reinvigorate the two-party system, which it did. In the 1952 election, he easily defeated Democrat Adlai Stevenson, as he would a second time in 1956.

When Eisenhower entered the White House in 1953, many Democrats were concerned that he would attempt to dismantle the New Deal and its antipoverty programs. He was truly conservative and fearful of a runaway welfare state. Accordingly, he called for a reduction in the federal bureaucracy, spending cuts, and returning power to states and local governments, and warned of “creeping socialism.”

Nevertheless, he generally accepted the New Deal apparatus, especially Social Security; did not move to roll back economic regulation and social programs; and mainly sought to instill businesslike management and efficiencies into existing programs. His moderate stance on domestic policies was called Modern Republicanism, Dynamic Conservatism, and eventually Progressive Moderation.

Eisenhower did not simply accommodate the expanded role of the federal government. He established the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in 1953 and in 1954 approved of the expansion of Social Security to cover an additional 10 million Americans, including farmers and professionals. Also during the Eisenhower administration, unemployment insurance was expanded, a higher minimum wage was enacted, and funding was increased for public housing for the poor, but the president's devotion to balanced budgets led him to veto two public housing bills.

Dwight Eisenhower mainly sought to instill businesslike management and efficiencies into existing social programs.

Eisenhower proposed a limited public-health insurance program designed to help the half of all Americans, mostly the poor and elderly, who did not have insurance. His plan would have sought to encourage private and nonprofit health insurance companies to provide broader insurance protection to more families by creating a federal reinsurance service. Under his proposal, the federal government would have reinsured the special or substandard additional risk incurred from broadening coverage. The program required a startup appropriation of $25 million to be recouped by reinsurance fees. The measure also would have increased funding for vocational rehabilitation services and hospital construction.

Like Franklin Roosevelt, Eisenhower believed in stimulating the economy during cyclical downturns. Yet he generally professed opposition to using government [Page 301]programs as a stimulus, for he saw such endeavors as inevitably increasing the federal bureaucracy and government involvement, which he disliked. Therefore, he vetoed two public works projects designed to fight recession. During the recession of 1958, however, he ordered his postmaster general to ask Congress for $2 billion for modernization of postal buildings and equipment, believing that the program would swiftly put many of the jobless to work in the cities where unemployment was concentrated.

...