Over the past five years the Reagan administration has made sweeping changes in U.S. domestic policy. Through legislation, it has secured substantial cuts in social spending, and imple- mented a major regressive shift in the federal tax system. Through executive action, it has dismantled a host of regulatory programs, scaled back government protection of civil rights and civil liberties, and pursued a relentless assault on an already weakened labor movement. By vastly increasing the size of federal deficits, the Administration has also created enormous long term pressures to narrow the range of domestic government activity.

Abroad, these domestic initiatives have been complemented by an exceptionally aggressive foreign policy. The Administration has sponsored the largest sustained peacetime military buildup in U.S. history. It has sabotaged all efforts at arms control with the Soviet Union. And it has demonstrated a renewed U.S. willing- ness to intervene in the affairs of other states, particularly in the Third World.

Central America and the Caribbean have provided a special focus for the Administration's foreign policy efforts. Aggressive actions in that region began almost the day Reagan took office, with the suspension of U.S. aid to the government of Nicaragua. They have escalated from there. The Administration has pro- moted the militarization of Honduras, supported and funded the