How Far Do You Agree with the View That Nixon Achieved More Success with His Economic Policies Than the Presidents Who Followed Him in the Years to 1989?

How Far Do You Agree with the View That Nixon Achieved More Success with His Economic Policies Than the Presidents Who Followed Him in the Years to 1989?

How far do you agree with the view that Nixon achieved more success with his economic policies than the Presidents who followed him in the years to 1989?

After a long period of economic prosperity, President Johnson’s spending had left the incoming Nixon administration with great problems in the form of stagflation. This combination of rising inflation and rising unemployment would plague the subsequent presidents until President Reagan was able to employ a working solution in 1981.

When Richard Nixon entered the White House in 1969 economic problems, although not extremely pressing at this point, were certainly becoming more prominent. President Johnson’s elaborate spending on the ‘Great Society’ and the Vietnam War had resulted in a very large federal government budget deficit, leaving Nixon with little leeway to employ his own policies. Furthermore Nixon had to deal with a heavily Democrat controlled congress. The world market was also becoming a problem, with the increasing growth of the Japanese and West German economies challenging the US. As a result, stagflation became an increasingly serious problem as Nixon’s presidency went on. From 1967 to 1974 inflation had increased fourfold from 3% to 12%, while unemployment had risen from 3.3% in 1969 to 5.6% in 1972. Clearly Nixon had to respond and by 1971 the economy was at the top of his agenda. Nixon chose to concentrate on the seemingly out of control rising rate of inflation. In an attempt to stabilise borrowing and spending, interest rates were raised, however Nixon felt more radical measures were needed. In August 1971 Nixon announced a freeze on all wage and price increases for three months, steadying inflation for a short period. Nixon also attempted to reassert the power of the dollar on an international scale, by discarding the fixed exchange rate system in the US Nixon aimed to stabilise international trading. However again Nixon was vulnerable to international actions, and with the...

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