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President Reagan 's Economic Recovery Package

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President Reagan relied on the partisan pathway to successfully enact his economic recovery package. He won the election by campaigning on the declining state of the United States economy and the exponential size of the Federal government (Scott & Vogel, 1996, p. 1). By running on these issues, he made this a partisan platform and thus his election victory was viewed as a mandate from the people to implement the policies that he championed during his campaign. As the Republican Party Leader, he used the power of his office to utilize resources to develop a strong legislative process and package (Conlan & Posner, 2014)). He had to ensure that he had the support from within and outside the House (Scott & Vogel, 1996, p. 2). Additionally, he was aware that the Republican Party only controlled one chamber of Congress (the Senate). He needed to garner support of congressional leaders from both the Republican and Democratic parties to enact his legislation into law (Scott & Vogel, 1996, p. 2). While he had bipartisan support on the need to cut government spending and better manage the limit the growth of the federal government; there was resistance on the method to go about making these changes. Since he knew he was going to face resistance from a Democratic House, President Reagan lobbied continually with opponents in exchange for support (Scott & Vogel, 1996, p. 9).

To accomplish his objectives, President Reagan quickly appointed David Stockman as the Director of the Office of

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