President Reagan
Election of 1980
- Slogan: "It's morning in America"
- Republican candidate
- It was a conservative age: much of the population was older
- Reagan seemed suited to carry on the age of conservatism
- Denounced the activist government in both social and economic areas
- Promoted "common man"
- Condemned the big government
- Populist, political government = no federal intervention in common affairs, favoritism to minorities! and elitism of bureaucrats
- Wanted to win over Democratic working class as well as the lower-middle-class
- Not an intellectual but got knowledge from neoconservatists
- Former actor
- Promotion of the conservative cause attracted rich businessmen from California = kick started his political career
- Carter = unable to control inflation = made unpopular
- Liberal part of the Democratic Party nominated Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts
- Carter is left as the Democratic candidate after a car accident causes suspicion on Kennedy
- Reagan uses acting skills to have televised debates
- Also attacks Carter for the poor economy
- Carter in return claims that Reagan might push America into a nuclear war
- Reagan gets 51% of the popular vote
- Carter gets 41% of the popular vote
- Reagan gets 489 of the electoral votes while Carter only gets 49
- Republicans finally gain power over the Senate
Election of 1984
- Republican Candidate
- Democratic Nominee: Walter Mondale - became famous when he dictated that Congresswoman Geraldine Ferrar would be his vice-presidential nominee
- she was the first woman to come on a major-party presidential ticket
- Mondale was hurt : vice president during the Carter administration
- Reagan had gotten 525 electoral votes and 52,609,797 popular votes
- Mondale had only gotten 13 electoral votes and 36,450,613 popular votes
- Reagan won all states except Minnesota and District of Columbia
- = easily won
- foreign policies was issue of second term
- for example: Gorbachev, Soviet leader, introduced Glasnost, free speech, and Perestroika, help the economy
Problems with the National Budget
- Reagan: proposes an expenditure of $695 billion
- the future deficit= $38 billion
- this led to many social reforms
- other part of his economic program = tax cuts for about a 25% reduction
- July 1981: Reagan uses his acting skills on national television as he tried to convince the Congress to pass this tax reform bill
- August 1981: Congress approves a new tax program that lowered tax rates, federal estate taxes, and implanted new tax-free savings plans for investors
- = his plan of Supply-side Economics or Reganomics
- his advisors told him that budget discipline as well as tax reduction = get more investment, productivity, economic growth, but decrease the deficit
- this theory seemed beneficial at first by by the 1930's, the economy was in its deepest recession
- 1982: Unemployment was 11%
- many bank failures
- for example the automobile industry did very poorly as well
- lost money due to Japanese imports
- Democrats got mad at Reagan and accused him to make America carry so much of the economic burden
- in reality: the tight money policies that gave way to the recession were enacted by the FED
- Reagan and his followers just simply wait for the storm to pass = on 1983: process of economic recovery starts
- 1980's: heightened gaps between the rich and poor
- poor get poorer and watch the rich get richer
- rise of "yuppies": young, urban professionals
- the symbolized materialism and pursuit of wealth
- some believe the prosperity of the 1980's: due to military expenditures not Reagan's reforms
- = 2 trillion dollars to army
- 1982: deficit = $100 trillion
- a lot of borrowing = interest rates were kept high
- hurt the exports as the value of the dollar skyrocketed
- 1987: $152 billion in deficits
- became one of the strongest borrowers by the 1980's
Cold War
- claimed Soviets were "prepared to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat"
- did not believe in bettering their relationship with the Soviet Union
- Soviet Union: "focus of evil in the modern world"
- thought there was a point in negotiating with the Soviet Union
- believed if he strengthened the U.S. army = he could terrorize Soviet Union with a renewed arms race
- America was in a better economical position to carry out this
- risky = defense budgets would be directed to promoting an arms race that might not even work
- March 1983: Strategic Defense Initiative - or Star Wars = his want to create a high-technology missile-defense system
- also called for sending battle stations into space that could use lasers to wipe out missiles
- felt that this would protect America from the threat of nuclear power
- changed decades of thinking about the nuclear race as Star Wars dealt with offensive rather than defensive
- these doubts coupled with scientific doubts = hurt the growth of SDI
- 1981: Poland organizes into an union = "Solidarity"
- U.S. = economic sanctions on Poland USSR
- 1982-1985: oligarchs of Soviet Union die
- September 1983: blast a Korean passenger airliner
- 1983: arms-control negotiations between the United States and USSR - end
- 1984: in response of American boycott of Olympics in Moscow, USSR and Soviet-bloc athletes boycott the Los Angeles Olympic Games
Iran-Contra Imbroglio
- Reagan faced two daunting problems:
- = many American hostages in Lebanon who were taken by Muslim extremist groups
- = power of the left-wing Sandinista government in Nicaragua
- wanted Congress to give military aid to the rebel fighting against the Sandinista government
- Congress = no!
- administration= trying to find ways to help
- some officials saw a link between the hostage crisis in Lebanon and the government in Nicaragua
- 1985: diplomats secretly authorized to give weapons to the Iranians in return of aid for releasing the American hostages
- distribution of arms = against congressional ban on military help to the rebels in Nicaragua
- also against Reagan's word that he will not negotiate with terrorists
- 1986: secret dealings become public = much controversy
- Reagan claims he has no idea of this
- =Iran-Contra Scandal/Affair
- some found guilty like Oliver North and John Poindexter
- hurt Reagan's reputation concerning foreign trade
Economic Legacy
- helped regulatory rules and pushed for tax reform bills through Congress 1982-1986
- no balance budget as he had promised
- Supply-side : claimed that lower taxes would lead to higher government revenue
- reality: tax reduction and military financing = $200 billion in deficits
- during his 8 years Reagan gave $2 trillion to the national debt
- debt was financed by foreigners like Japan
- economic failure
- political triumph
- political goals: slow down the growth of the government as well as stop the social programs of Johnson's Great Society
- the social spending allowed Reagan to achieve his highest goal: containment of a welfare state
- was able to maintain his political ideals for awhile even though his economic policies failed
- 1980's: an equal distribution of income and the rise of the middle class