AMSCO Chapter 30

Milton Freidman

free market economist who gave evidence in the 1970s of a steady shift to the right away from liberalism of the 1960s.

Political Action Committees (PACs)

opposed big government, new deal liberalism, gun control, feminism, gay rights, welfare, affirmative action, sexual permissiveness, abortion, and drug use.

Proposition 13

a measure in California that sharply cut property taxes.

Arthur Laffer

conservative economist who believed that tax cuts would increase government revenues.

Religious Fundamentalism

people who supported reagan, called for prayers in school and creationism teaching, pro-life, anti-evolutionism teaching.

Televangelists

Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts, and Jim Baker who used the television as an instrument for religious teaching and politics.

Moral Majority

Religion became an instrument for electoral politics when an evangelist from Virginia, Jerry Falwell founded this, which helped financed campaigns to unseat liberal members of Congress.

Abortion rights; Roe v. Wade

Legalization of abortion in Roe v. Wade sparked the right-to-life movement. The movement united catholics and fundamental protestants.

Reverse Descrimination

White people blamed their troubles during the stagflation economy on affirmative action.

Regents of University of California v. Bakke

Supreme Court ruled that while race could be considered, racial quotas (affirmative action) at schools were unconstitutional.

Election of 1980

Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter because of the Iranian hostage crisis and stagflation. Republicans took control over Senate after 40 years of democratic dominance in Congress.

Supply-side economics (reaganomics)

Argued that tax cuts + reduced government spending would increase investment by the private sector, which would lead to increased production, jobs, and prosperity.

“trickle-down” economics

Reaganomics was compared to the "trickle-down" economics of the 1920s, in which wealthy Americans prospered, and some of their increased spending benefited the middle class and the poor

Economic Recovery Tax (1981)

A measure signed by Reagan in 1981 which cut personal income taxes by 25 percent, lowered the maximum rate from 70 to 50 percent for 1982, cut the capital gains tax by a third, and offered the wealthy a broad array of other tax concessions.

Business Deregulation

Reagan followed up on the promise of 'getting government off the backs of people' by reducing federal regulations on business + industry. Easier for big business to do what they wanted w/o having to worry about environmental protection restrictions

PACTO Strike

Reagan was anti-union, and during this strike he fired thousands of striking federal air traffic controllers for violating their contract, and he decertified their union.

Sandra Day O’Connor

The first woman to serve on the Supreme Court, appointed by Reagan. She was a Republican.

William Rehnquist

New chief justice on the Supreme Court, appointed by Reagan. He was a large component in scaling back affirmative action and limiting the earlier ruling of Roe v. Wade

Election of 1984

Reagan beat Walter Mondale with a landslide victory of 525 electoral votes.

Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)

Ambitious plan for building a high-tech system of laser and particle beams to destroy enemy missiles before they could reach US territory. Critics called is “Star Wars” because it was costly and would only escalate the arms races

Interference in Nicaragua

US supported friendly dictators as long as they weren't communists, in Nicaragua a Marxist group called the Sandinistas had overthrown the dictator. Reagan responded by providing a lot of military aid to the "contras" in their efforts to remove the Sandinistas.

Boland Amendment

prohibited further aid to the contras in Nicaragua.

Iran-contra affair

Iran and Iraq were at war, Reagan sold a US airtank + anti-aircraft missiles to Iran's government for their help in freeing Americans held hostage by radical Arab group. Reagan used the money from the sale to fund the contras in Nicaragua - direct violations of Boland Amendment + congressional budget authority.

Beirut Bombings

Foreign policy disaster of Reagan's administration - truck loaded with explosives crashed into U.S. marine barracks at Lebanon's Beirut International Airport, killing 241 U.S. citizens and wounding over 100 others. Four months of U.S.-brokered negotiations in 1983 failed to find a settlement and coincided with a suicide car bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut on 18 April that killed sixty-three people.

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)

-The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) terrorist group that Israel fought with US approval

Yasser Arafat

PLO leader who agreed in 1988 to recognize Israel's right to exist. - US pressured him

Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies

glasnost: openness to end political repression and move toward greater political freedom for Soviet citizens

perestroika: reconstruction of the Soviet economy by introducing some free-market practices.

INF agreement

Reagan and Gorbachev agreed to remove and destroy all intermediate-range missiles

Tiananmen Square

China, prodemocracy students demonstrated for freedom in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989. The Chinese govt. crushed the protest with tanks, killing hundreds and ending the brief beginning of a political environment in China.

Poland, Lech Walesa

Starting in Poland 1989 the election of Lech Walesa , leader of the once-outlawed Solidarity movement, the communist party fell from one country in eastern Europe after another

Soviet Union Breakup

Many republics declared independence; the Soviet government was clearly powerless to stop the fragmentation. The Communist Party and Soviet government became powerless and ceased to exist.

Boris Yeltsin

President of the Russian Republic, formed the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) ,disbanded the Communist party in Russia + attempted to establish a democracy and a free-market economy

START I and START II

ush + Gorbachev signed
START I : reduced the number of nuclear warheads to under 10,000 for each side
Bush + Yeltsin signed
START II: reduced the number of nuclear weapons to just over 3,000 each
Offered US economic assistance to the troubled Russian economy.

Yugoslavia Civil War

Yugoslavia started to disintegrate in 1991, a civil war broke out in Bosnia + Herzegovina in 1992.

Election of 1988

George HW Bush beats Michael Dukakis because of his close association with Reagan.

Panama Invasion

Bush ordered the invasion of Panama to remove the autocratic General Manuel Noriega. The alleged purpose of the invasion was to stop Noriega from using his country as a drug pipeline to the US. US troops remained until elections established a more credible government.

Saddam Hussein

Iraq's dictator, who invaded oil-rich Kuwait, this move threatened Western oil sources

Persian Gulf War

Hussein invaded oil rich Kuwait where we got oil from, Bush built a coalition of UN members to pressure Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait. The UN embargo had little effect. Bush had Operation Desert Storm in which air strikes were down on Iraq's grounds. After 100 hours of fighting on the ground, Iraq conceded defeat.

Operation Desert Storm

Massive operation in Iraq in which more than 500,000 Americans were joined by military units from 28 nations. For 5 weeks they did relentless airstrikes and followed up with a invasion led by US General Norman Schwarzkopf. After 100 hours on ground fighting, Iraq conceded defeat.

Clarence Thomas

Bush nominated this man to replace the retiring Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court. Was controversial because he had conservative views on judicial issues + charges of sexual harassment against him angered women. Senate still approved it

Americans with Disabilities Act (1990)

prohibited the discrimination against citizens with physical and mental disabilities in hiring, transportation, and public accommodation.

Election of 1992

Bill Clinton won over George H.W. Bush because of the economy's problems and the solving of foreign policy problems, Bush's greatest strength. People cared more about the economy and felt that Bush was tired and out of touch with the people.

H. Ross Perot

Was the third party candidate in the 1992 election; he got 19% fo the vote; the most for any independent since Teddy Roosevelt in 1912

Anti-Crime Bill

provided $30 billion in funding for more police protection and crime prevention programs, also banned the sale of most assault rifles which angered the NRA

NAFTA

North American Free Trade Agreement - created a free-trade zone with Canada and Mexico

Brady Bill

mandated a five-day waiting period for the purchase of handguns

Congress Election of 1994

Republicans gained control of both house of Congress for the first time since 1954

Newt Gingrich

New Speaker of the House who led the Republicans in an attack on federal programs + spending outlined in their campaign manifesto "Contract with America"

Oklahoma City Bombings

Federal building bombed by militia-movement extremists. Took 169 lives, worse acts of domestic terrorism in the nation's history until the attack on 9/11

Clinton Impeachment

Impeached for purjury about Monica Lewinsky. Tried and acquitted by the Senate.

Madeline K. Albright

first woman to serve as secretary of state. Assertive in the use of American power, but questions still remained about the role of the US, especially the use of its armed forces for peacekeeping in foreign nations' internal conflicts

Yugoslavia Breakup

Serbian dictator, Solobodan Milosevic carried out a series of armed conflicts to suppress independence movements in the former Yugoslav provinces of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo.

Balkan Wars

Milosevic tried to suppress independence movements, hundreds of thousands of members of ethnic and religious minorities were killed in brutal "ethnic cleansing" NATO bombed to help out, these Balkan Wars proved to be the worst conflict Europe had ever seen since WW2, and were a troubling reminder of how WW1 had started

Asian Nuclear Proliferation

growing nuclear weapons in North Korea, India, and Pakistan.

Israel vs PLO

Israel granted home rule to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank territories, and signed a peace treaty w/ Jordan in 1994. Israeli-Palestinian peace process slowed down after assassination of Israeli Prime Minister. The death renewed violence in Israel and provoked a new round of anti-American sentiment in the Islamic world

World Trade Organization (WTO)

established in 1994 to oversee trade agreements, enforce trade rules, and settle debates

G-8

made up of the world's largest industrial powers [Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, UK, USA] and controlled 2/3s of the world's wealth, also remained the leading economic powers. However in the 21st century they were to be passed by China, India, and Brazil.

Immigration Act of 1986

attempted to create a fair entry process for immigrants, but failed to stop the problem of illegal entry into the US from Mexico. Criticized for granting amnesty to undocumented immigrants from Mexico and the Americas

“graying” america

In 2000, 35 million people were over 64, but the fasted growing segment of the population was those 85 and over. Baby-boom generation aging, concern about health care, prescription drugs, senior housing, and Social Security increased.