American Experience

Former White House Chief of Staff and Secretary of Treasury James Baker on the 100 Day Plan

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JAMES BAKER: We had a 100 day plan that revolved around some significant tax reductions and spending cuts. We wanted to concentrate on our economic program for the first 100 days of the Administration. In an early National Security Council meeting the question of Nicaragua or El Salvador came up, I can't remember which it was, and there was a suggestion by Secretary of State Haig, at the time, that to really deal with that issue, we had to go to the source and going to the source meant taking care of Cuba and the President's White House advisors all discouraged that because if you're going to have a 100 day plan, it calls for a focus. On an economic program, you ought to keep the focus on the economic program. We did so in the first 100 days and with very good effect but it was only because we did not let ourselves be diverted into these other areas, such as taking care of Cuba.

One of the keys was a single-minded focus on the package, not letting other issues get in the way. The Carter Administration had made a terrible mistake by sending up so much legislation in their first 100 days that the focus became very diffused. Other administrations have made a similar mistake. We didn't make that mistake in the first Reagan term. And we worked very, very hard, very diligently and with a single focus in order to get it accomplished.

We worked hard on the Congress. We worked the individual members, as individuals. The staff worked hard. We all did. The President worked hard on it. He was willing to make any calls that we ever asked him to make. He never once moaned about having to make a congressional call, because President Reagan understood that we judge our presidents on the basis, primarily, of their success in getting their programs through the legislative branch. He was an extraordinarily hard worker, as was President Bush, I might say, on the question of trying to bring the Congress along. President Reagan didn't have a Republican Congress. He did have a Republican Senate for six years and that helped us a lot. We were able to leverage the House a little bit. But we had to work hard to get that program through Congress and we had a very hostile House of Representatives that was dominated by Speaker O'Neill and a large Democratic majority.

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