Provisional Pulpit: Modern Presidential Leadership of Public Opinion

Chapter 6: Unsuccessful Leadership in Domestic Policy

Chapter 6 Unsuccessful Leadership in Domestic Policy In the previous chapter, I outlined three case studies of successful leadership of public opinion. These cases helped advance our understanding of when presidents can lead public opinion, the conditions that enhance presidential leadership, and how these moments interact with one another in real political contexts. In this chapter I examine three cases where presidents are unable to lead public opinion, due to the absence of characteristics that were argued would enhance leadership or the presence of conditions that were argued would not enhance leadership . This is a more familiar story for scholars of presidential leadership —one of presidential failure to lead public opinion in critical political moments. This inquiry is as effective and important as determining the conditions of success because it helps to qualify impressions of how presidential leadership fails so the analysis can be more precise in pinpointing the contextual factors that contribute to the lack of opinion movement. Therefore, to explore more directly when and how presidents fail at leading public opinion, I identify three instances where presidents were unsuccessful, in part because the favorable political conditions discussed in chapter  are not met or the unfavorable conditions in chapter  are met. Similarly, the degree of congruence with the theoretical expectations from chapter  is explored to determine whether or not these expectations hold. First, I analyze President Kennedy’s inability to get the public and Congress to accept his proposals for funding the Medicare program from Social Security. Second, I investigate President Ford’s lack of success in leading the public on his proposals for economic reform (specifically his tax surcharge policy and “Whip Inflation Now” campaign ). In the third case study I explore the Reagan administration’s inept handling of their early proposals to reprioritize funds from Social Security in . Unsuccessful Leadership in Domestic Policy : 111 Kennedy’s Medicare Proposal One of the first and most potent examples of President John F. Kennedy’s “New Frontier” agenda was the expansion of health-care coverage to older Americans. In , increasing medical care for the aged (Medicare ) was a major campaign promise of the Kennedy campaign, when, according to chief aide and White House speechwriter Theodore “Ted” Sorensen, the president “pushed this bill hard in the campaign.” Passing Medicare legislation would not be easy, in part because the president would have to rely on a fragile political coalition in the Democratic Party and convince the public that paying for Medicare would not be a burdensome tax. The president himself pointed to Medicare as one of the few issues that “still roused powerful feelings among the general public.” Leading the public to endorse the White House’s policy for the government ’s funding of Medicare would prove to be a tough challenge—one too difficult even for the “prince of Camelot.” Legislation to initiate the Medicare program was proposed in February of , one of the first pieces of legislation the Kennedy administration sent to Congress. The Kennedy proposal “would have levied an additional . percent increase in Social Security payroll taxes to pay hospital and nursing bills of persons eligible for Social Security old-age benefits.” The plan would also provide for  days of hospital care and  days of nursing home care to more than  million elderly Americans. In his letter to Congress introducing the legislation, the president argued: In our Social Security and Railroad Retirement systems we have the instruments which can spread the cost of health services in old age over the working years—effectively, and in a manner consistent with the dignity of the individual. By using these proved systems to provide health insurance protection, it will be possible for our older people to get the vital hospital services they need without exhausting their resources or turning to public assistance. The self-supporting insurance method of financing the cost of such health services is certainly to be preferred to an expansion of public assistance, and should reduce the number of those needing medical care under the public assistance program. Anticipating opposition, the president concluded by noting, “This program is not a program of socialized medicine. It is a program of prepay- 112 : CHAPTER 6 ment of health costs with absolute freedom of choice guaranteed. Every person will choose his own doctor and hospital.” The president was trying to make Medicare the signature issue of his administration and was attempting to balance the needs of a core Democratic constituency...