Timeline Events

Corrections Corporation of America Founded in Nashville, Launching Modern Private Prison Industry

Thomas W. Beasley (chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party), Robert Crants, and T. Don Hutto found Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) in Nashville, Tennessee, creating the first modern for-profit prison company. After a 15-minute presentation on Valentine’s Day 1983, Massey Burch …

Heritage Foundation Expands to 100+ Staff with $10 Million Budget During Reagan Administration Peak Influence

The Heritage Foundation reached over 100 staff members and a $10 million annual budget by 1983, representing explosive growth during the Reagan administration’s implementation of Heritage policy recommendations. In just six years since Ed Feulner became president in 1977, Heritage had grown …

SEC Adopts Rule 10b-18, Legalizing Stock Buybacks and Creating Major Wealth Extraction Mechanism

Under Reagan administration SEC Chairman John Shad, former vice chairman of E.F. Hutton, the Securities and Exchange Commission adopts Rule 10b-18, creating a ‘safe harbor’ from manipulation liability for corporate stock repurchases. Prior to this rule, large-scale share repurchases were …

RNC Signs Consent Decree Banning Voter Intimidation After Armed Ballot Security Task Force

The Republican National Committee signed a consent decree in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey prohibiting tactics that could intimidate Democratic voters, settling a lawsuit filed by the Democratic National Committee over the 1981 New Jersey gubernatorial election. In that …

Reagan Signs Garn-St Germain Act: Massive Thrift Deregulation

President Reagan signs the Garn-St Germain Depository Institutions Act in the Rose Garden, calling it “the most important legislation for financial institutions in the last 50 years.” The Act removes Depression-era constraints on thrift asset holdings, allows S&Ls to make high-risk …

Josemaria Escriva Beatified Despite Controversies

Pope John Paul II granted Opus Dei status as a personal prelature in 1982, a pivotal moment in the organization’s history. This decision came amid significant controversy, with theologians and scholars questioning the rapid elevation of Opus Dei’s founder, Josemaría Escrivá. The …

Reagan Signs TEFRA Reversing Much of ERTA - Largest Peacetime Tax Increase Raises $100 Billion After Revenue Collapse

On September 3, 1982, President Ronald Reagan signed the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act (TEFRA) into law, reversing substantial portions of the Economic Recovery Tax Act he had signed just 13 months earlier. TEFRA raised nearly $100 billion in federal revenues through closure of tax …

Equal Rights Amendment Defeated After Schlafly's Decade-Long Campaign, Establishing Conservative Movement Model

The Equal Rights Amendment expires on June 30, 1982, after failing to achieve ratification by 38 states, marking a stunning victory for Phyllis Schlafly’s decade-long STOP ERA campaign and establishing the template for modern conservative movement organizing. Despite 30 of the necessary 38 …

Voting Rights Act Extension of 1982: Results Test Adopted, Section 2 Strengthened After Reagan Opposition

President Reagan signed the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1982, extending Section 5 preclearance requirements for 25 years and critically strengthening Section 2 by adopting a “results test” that made proving voting discrimination far easier. The legislation represented a major defeat …

DOJ Issues Baxter's 1982 Merger Guidelines, Revolutionizing Antitrust Enforcement Toward Corporate Permissiveness

Reagan’s Antitrust Chief William Baxter released the Department of Justice’s 1982 Merger Guidelines, fundamentally transforming how the federal government evaluated mergers and effectively repealing Congressional antitrust statutes through administrative policy. The FTC simultaneously …

Federalist Society Organizational Profile: Judicial Pipeline and Conservative Legal Movement Infrastructure

Comprehensive organizational analysis reveals the Federalist Society as the most successful judicial capture mechanism in American history, systematically placing conservative judges throughout the federal judiciary through a three-division structure spanning law schools, practicing attorneys, and …

Berkeley Pit Mine Closes on Earth Day, Pumps Shut Off, Creating Toxic Lake Superfund Site

Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) closed the Berkeley Pit copper mine on Earth Day 1982 and immediately shut off the pumps that had kept groundwater out of the massive excavation, beginning the pit’s transformation into one of the most toxic bodies of water in North America. The corporate …

Guatemala Military Coup Brings Ríos Montt to Power with Reagan Support

General Efraín Ríos Montt seizes power in Guatemala through a military coup, beginning what would become the bloodiest period in the nation’s history. The Reagan administration, seeking regional allies for its covert war against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government, immediately embraces the …

Reagan Appoints Robert Bork to DC Circuit Court of Appeals, Positioning Antitrust Revolution Author for Supreme Court

President Ronald Reagan appointed Robert Bork to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on February 9, 1982, elevating the author of “The Antitrust Paradox” to the federal bench widely considered the nation’s second-most important court. Bork’s …

AT&T Breakup Settlement Finalized, Becoming Last Major Antitrust Action for Decades

The Department of Justice and AT&T finalize the antitrust settlement requiring the telecommunications giant to divest its seven regional Bell operating companies (Baby Bells) in 1984, breaking up the AT&T natural monopoly. However, this settlement paradoxically marks the end rather than …

Reagan Deficit Explosion: National Debt Triples From $1T to $3T in Eight Years

The national debt under President Reagan explodes from $997 billion in 1981 to $2.9 trillion by 1989, representing an increase of 186% and adding approximately $1.9 trillion in new debt during his eight-year presidency. Annual budget deficits average 4.0% of GDP during Reagan’s tenure, …

CNP Completes "Three-Legged Stool" with Heritage and ALEC - Coordination Infrastructure Operational

By the end of 1981, Paul Weyrich had established the three core institutions that would serve as the infrastructure for conservative movement coordination for the next four decades: Heritage Foundation (policy research), ALEC (state legislation), and CNP (coordination hub).

Weyrich co-founded …

Lee Atwater's Recorded Confession Explains Evolution of Racial Dog Whistle Politics

In a November 1981 anonymous interview with political scientist Alexander Lamis, Republican strategist Lee Atwater provided an extraordinarily candid explanation of how the GOP uses coded racial appeals. Atwater explained: ‘You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” …

Reagan Orders Coast Guard Interdiction of Haitian Refugees, Establishing Maritime Asylum Denial

President Ronald Reagan issues Executive Order 12324, authorizing the U.S. Coast Guard to interdict vessels carrying undocumented migrants in international waters and return passengers to their country of origin without asylum screening. Though framed neutrally, the order specifically targets …

Reagan Signs Economic Recovery Tax Act (ERTA) - Top Rate Slashed from 70% to 50%, Corporate Tax Cuts Total $150 Billion Over Five Years

On August 13, 1981, President Ronald Reagan signed the Economic Recovery Tax Act (ERTA) into law, enacting one of the largest tax cuts in American history. The Act reduced the highest marginal individual income tax rate from 70% to 50% and the lowest rate from 14% to 11%, implementing an …

Reagan Fires PATCO Strikers: Union-Busting Era Begins

President Ronald Reagan fires 11,345 striking air traffic controllers who refused to return to work, permanently banning them from federal service. When 13,000 PATCO members went on strike August 3 seeking better pay, improved working conditions, and a reduced workweek, Reagan declared the strike a …

AIDS Epidemic Begins: Reagan Administration Maintains Years of Deadly Silence

The CDC publishes the first report on unusual immune system failures in five previously healthy gay men in Los Angeles, marking the medical recognition of what becomes the AIDS epidemic. President Ronald Reagan’s administration responds with years of complete public silence while the epidemic …

Council for National Policy Founded with Schlafly as Founding Member, Creating Elite Conservative Network

The Council for National Policy (CNP) is founded by Tim LaHaye, Paul Weyrich, Richard Viguerie, Morton Blackwell, Phyllis Schlafly, Nelson Bunker Hunt, Joseph Coors, and approximately 50 other conservatives who begin meeting every Wednesday morning at Viguerie’s Virginia home. The CNP is …

Council for National Policy Founded - Secret Conservative Coordination Network

In May 1981, during the Reagan administration, Tim LaHaye (then head of the Moral Majority), Paul Weyrich, Nelson Bunker Hunt, T. Cullen Davis, Howard Phillips, and William Cies founded the Council for National Policy (CNP) as an umbrella organization and networking group for conservative and …

Reagan Appoints William Baxter as Antitrust Chief, Enforcement Collapses as Chicago School Takes Control

President Ronald Reagan appointed Stanford Law Professor William F. Baxter as Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division, marking the formal beginning of antitrust enforcement collapse and the operationalization of Chicago School ideology throughout the federal government. Baxter, a …

Jack Welch Becomes GE CEO, Launches 'Shareholder Value' Era and Mass Layoffs

Jack Welch becomes CEO of General Electric at age 45 and delivers his landmark speech ‘Growing fast in a slow-growth economy’ in New York City, marking what is widely acknowledged as the ‘dawn of the shareholder value movement.’ Welch operationalizes Milton Friedman’s …

Reagan Appoints James Watt as Interior Secretary - Oil Industry Capture

President Reagan appoints James Watt, former president of Mountain States Legal Foundation (funded by Coors and oil companies), as Interior Secretary. Watt immediately opens federal lands to mining and drilling, reverses environmental protections, and staffs the department with industry executives. …

Reagan Inauguration Begins Antitrust Revolution: Eight Years of Systematic Enforcement Collapse and Corporate Consolidation

Ronald Reagan’s inauguration marked the beginning of the most consequential transformation in American antitrust policy since the Sherman Act of 1890—an eight-year systematic dismantlement of competition enforcement that would enable four decades of corporate consolidation and monopolization. …

ALEC Establishes Cabinet Task Forces and Partners with Reagan's Task Force on Federalism

In 1981, ALEC formalized its systematic corporate legislative capture mechanism by establishing seven Cabinet Task Forces that worked directly with the Reagan administration on policy development. President Ronald Reagan formed a national Task Force on Federalism headed by U.S. Senator Paul Laxalt …

Superfund Law Passes But Industry Successfully Builds In Weaknesses and Delays

On December 11, 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), commonly known as Superfund. While the law represented a landmark response to Love Canal and thousands of toxic waste sites nationwide, industry lobbying had …

Edward Seaga Defeats Michael Manley in Jamaica Election, Immediately Re-Engages IMF Structural Adjustment

Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) leader Edward Seaga wins a convincing victory over Prime Minister Michael Manley, immediately abandoning democratic socialist policies and re-engaging with the IMF after Manley had severed ties in early 1980 rather than accept the Fund’s harsh conditions. …

Ronald Reagan Elected President, Conservative Infrastructure Achieves Powell Memo Goals

Ronald Reagan wins the presidency in a 44-state Electoral College landslide, marking the triumph of the conservative infrastructure deliberately built over nine years in response to the Powell Memo blueprint. Reagan’s victory demonstrates the effectiveness of coordinated institutional power …

Reagan Launches General Election Campaign with 'States' Rights' Speech Near Civil Rights Murder Site

Ronald Reagan opened his general election campaign at the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia, Mississippi—just seven miles from where Ku Klux Klan members had murdered civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner in 1964. In his first major speech after the Republican …

Reagan Aide Edwin Meese Coordinates with Heritage on "Mandate for Leadership"

Edwin Meese III, senior aide to Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign, makes a surprise appearance at a Heritage Foundation dinner honoring the team chairmen and co-chairmen working on the “Mandate for Leadership” project, demonstrating direct coordination between the Reagan …

Schlafly and Falwell Joint Rally Demonstrates Religious Right Coalition Unity

Phyllis Schlafly and Jerry Falwell headline an ‘I Love America—Stop ERA Rally’ in front of the Illinois state capitol, publicly demonstrating the emerging unity of the Religious Right coalition that Schlafly had been building since 1972. The rally symbolizes a historic breakthrough: the …

Powell creates Central Hudson test expanding corporate commercial speech rights

Justice Lewis Powell delivers 8-1 majority opinion in Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission of New York (447 U.S. 557), striking down New York ban on utility promotional advertising and establishing four-part “Central Hudson test” for commercial speech …

Mariel Boatlift Exposes Racist Double Standards as Cubans Welcomed While Haitians Detained

Between April and October 1980, approximately 125,000 Cubans flee to the United States in the Mariel Boatlift after Fidel Castro opens the port of Mariel to emigration. Simultaneously, thousands of Haitians fleeing the brutal Duvalier dictatorship arrive in Florida by boat, creating a natural …

Refugee Act of 1980 Establishes Systematic Asylum Process, Becomes Target of Enforcement Capture

President Jimmy Carter signs the Refugee Act of 1980, the first comprehensive reform of U.S. refugee policy since the Displaced Persons Act of 1948. The legislation adopts the United Nations definition of refugee as anyone with a “well-founded fear of persecution” based on race, …

Carter Signs Chrysler Bailout, Corporate Welfare Precedent Set

President Jimmy Carter signed the Chrysler Corporation Loan Guarantee Act of 1979 into law on January 7, 1980, following House passage on December 13, 1979 (271-136 vote) and Senate passage on December 21, 1979 (53-44 vote). The legislation provided up to $1.5 billion in federal loan guarantees to …

U.S. Backs El Salvador Death Squad Government Through 12-Year Civil War

Archbishop Oscar Romero is assassinated on March 24, 1980, while celebrating Mass in San Salvador, marking a symbolic beginning of U.S. support for El Salvador’s death squad government during a brutal 12-year civil war. A single gunman fires directly into Romero’s heart from the chapel …

Soviet Afghanistan Invasion Positions BCCI for CIA Covert Operations Expansion

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan creates strategic opportunity for BCCI to become primary financial conduit for CIA covert operations. BCCI’s existing relationships with Pakistan’s ISI, General Zia ul-Haq, and presence in regional banking markets position it perfectly to handle the …

Volcker Shock - Federal Reserve Raises Rates to 20%, Recession Begins

On October 6, 1979, Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker announced dramatic steps to combat inflation, fundamentally transforming monetary policy by switching from targeting interest rates to targeting the money supply. Appointed by President Jimmy Carter in August 1979 to replace William Miller, …

Moral Majority Founded - Corporate Agenda Masked by Religious Cultural Warfare

In June 1979, Paul Weyrich and Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority during a meeting at a Holiday Inn in Lynchburg, Virginia, with Weyrich coining the term “moral majority.” The organization represented a strategic alliance between corporate interests and religious conservatives, …

Vietnam Veterans File Agent Orange Class Action Lawsuit Against Dow Chemical and Monsanto - Corporations Deny Liability Despite Evidence

Attorney Victor Yannacone files a class action lawsuit in the Southern District of New York against U.S. chemical manufacturers of Agent Orange, including Dow Chemical Company and Monsanto—the two largest producers—along with Diamond Shamrock, Uniroyal, Thompson Chemicals, Hercules, and dozens of …

Federation for American Immigration Reform Founded, Launching Modern Nativist Movement Infrastructure

Dr. John Tanton, a Michigan ophthalmologist and former Sierra Club population committee chair, founds the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) in Washington, D.C., establishing the organizational infrastructure for the modern nativist movement. Initially framing immigration restriction …

Wage Stagnation Era Begins: Productivity-Pay Gap Opens as Union Power Collapses

After three decades of wages rising in tandem with productivity (1948-1979), the fundamental relationship between worker productivity and compensation breaks down completely beginning in 1979, marking the start of 45+ years of wage stagnation despite continued productivity growth. Between 1948-1979, …

Corporate Lobbying Presence Quintuples in Washington, D.C.

By the end of the 1970s, corporate public affairs offices in Washington dramatically expanded from 100 in 1968 to over 500, with registered corporate lobbyists increasing from 175 in 1971 to nearly 2,500. This unprecedented mobilization, influenced by the Powell Memo, represented a systematic …

Natural Gas Policy Act Begins Energy Sector Deregulation

President Jimmy Carter signed the Natural Gas Policy Act (NGPA) into law on November 9, 1978, following Senate passage on September 27 (57-42 vote) and House passage on October 14 (231-168 vote). The legislation was part of Carter’s National Energy Act of 1978, a response to the 1973 energy …

Business Roundtable Coordinates First Major Corporate PAC Election Strategy

The Business Roundtable, representing Fortune 500 CEOs, coordinated the first systematic corporate PAC strategy for the 1978 midterm elections. Corporate PACs contributed $9.8 million to federal candidates, with 75% going to business-friendly Republicans. This marked the beginning of coordinated …

Carter Signs Airline Deregulation Act, Neoliberal Turn Begins

President Jimmy Carter signed the Airline Deregulation Act into law on October 24, 1978, marking the first time in U.S. history that an industry was deregulated and removing federal control over airline fares, routes, and market entry. In 1977, Carter had appointed Cornell economics professor Alfred …