The Election of Ronald Reagan, 1980

• Reagan was a neoconservative in opposition of a big government that supported “common man’s” rights, free-market capitalism, and anti-Soviet policies

  • Reagan opposed favoritism for minorities, liberal welfare programs, and affirmative-action policies

  • Reagan called for the reassertion of individualistic traditional values and the centrality of family

• Reagan won the election of 1980

The Reagan Revolution

• Iranian’s released hostages on Reagan’s Inauguration Day (January 20, 1981)

• Reagan formed a consesrvative cabinet

  • One of Reagan’s goals was to reduce the government’s size through shrinking the federal budget and cutting taxes

  • Reagan proposed budget that called for cuts of $35 billion in the social programs such as food stamps and federally-funded job-training centers

• Reagan was shot on March 6, 1981 with him recovering and returning back to work 12 days later

The Battle of the Budget

• Reagan called for substantial tax cuts

• Congress approved a set of tax reforms that lowered the individual ta rates such as federal estate taxes

  and created new tax-free saving plans for small investors

• Reagan supported “supply-side” economics and believed that they would stimulate new investment, boost productivity, promote dramatic economic growth, and reduce the federal deficit

• Economy slipped into a recession from 1981-1982 as unemployment rose and banks closed

  • Income gaps widened between rich and poor during 1980s

  • Economy had recovered by mid-1980s

  • Economists speculated economy recovered due to Reagan’s large military expenditures

Reagan Renews the Cold War

• Reagan’s strategy for dealing with Soviet Union was to initiate a new arms race and outspend the Soviets

• Reagan expected that American economy could better support an expensive arms race compared to Soviet Union’s economy

• Reagan announced missile-defense system called the Strategic Defense Initiative (called Star Wars) and called for orbiting battle satellites in space that could for fire laser beams to shoot down intercontinental missiles

• USSR declared martial law in Poland in 1981

• Cold War was intensified by end of 1983 with all arms-control negotiations being broken

Troubles Abroad

• Israel invaded Lebanon in June of 1982 with it seeking to destroy the guerilla bases from where the Palestinian fighters were attacking Israel

• Reagan sent “military advisors” to El Salvador in 1979 to support the pro-American government

  • Reagan sent forces to island of Grenada in October 1983 where a military coup brought Marxists to power

Round Two for Reagan

• Reagan won election of 1984 and foreign policy issues took up the majority of his second term

• Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985

  • Was committed to reforming country with Glasnost and Perestroika policies with both requiring Soviet Union to reduce the size of its military and concentrate aid on its citizens which necessitated an end to the Cold War and thus, in December of 1985, Reagan and Gorbachv signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which banned all intermediate-range nuclear missiles from Europe

The Iran-Contra Imbroglio

• Reagan had to deal with Ameriacn hostages being held by Muslim extremists in Lebanon and Nicaragua being run by a left-wing Sandinista government

• Reagan administration secretly sold arms to Iran to circumvent Congress’s ban on sending arms to Nicaraguan rebels

  • News of the secret deal broke out in November of 1986 and led to controversy which cast a shadow over Reagan’s record in foreign policy

Reagan's Economic Legacy

• Reagan’s tax cuts and huge increases in military spending led to there being $200 billion in annual deficits

• During Reagan’s administration, $2 trillion was added to the national debt with these large budget deficits helped in making future social welfare programs seem economically unattainable

• The median household income declined in the early 1990s

The Religious Right

• A political organization called the Moral Majority was founded in 1979 by Reverend Falwell

  • Falwell preached against sexual permissiveness, abortion, feminism, and the sperad of gay rights

  • Organization became an aggressive political advocate of causes that were predominantly conservative

Conservatism in the Courts

• Reagan appointed 3 conservative-minded judges and also appointed the first woman Supreme court Justice

• Reagan sought to use Supreme court to fight affirmative action and abortion

• Affirmative action consisted of of the court making it more difficult to prove that an employer practiced racial discrimination in hiring through two cases in 1989

• In Roe v. Wade the court prohibited states from making laws that interfered with a woman’s right to an abortion in the early months of pregnancy

Referendum on Reaganism in 1988

• Democrats gained political opportunities due to corruption in the government

• Stock market dropped 508 points on “Black Monday” with it being one of the largest one-day decline in history

• Republicans nominated George H. W. Bush in the election of 1988

• Democrats nominated Michael Dukakis

• Bush won the election

George H. W. Bush and the End of the Cold War

• Thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators protested in Tiananmen Square in China in 1989 with the movement being crushed in June of 1989

• Several communist regimes in Europe collapsed in 1989 including those in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Romania

• Berlin Wall came down in December of 1989 with the two Germanies being reunited in October of 1990

• The Soviet Union fell apart with it dissolving into 15 republics, loosely confederated in the commonwealth of Independent States

  • Demise of Soviet Union ended the Cold War and ethnic warfare broke out throughout the former Soviet Union

• America’s economy suffered as a result of the reduced defense spending following the Cold War

The Persian Gulf Crisis

• Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, seeking Oil on August 2, 1990

• United Nations Security council condemned the invasion and demanded the immediate withdrawal of Iraq’s troops

  • U.S. led a large international military deployment after Hussein refused, with 539,000 troops being sent to the Persian Gulf region

  • U.S. and U.N. launched a 37-day air war against Iraq with it being followed by “Operation Desert Storm” (land war)

  • Hussein was forced to sign a cease-fire on February 27

• Bush decided not to invade Baghdad as the allies had only agreed to liberate Kuwait, with this allowing Saddaam to stay in power

Bush on the Home Front

• Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 which prohibited discrimination against citizens with physical or mental disabiltiies

• Bush signed a major water projects bill in 1992, with it reforming the distribution of subsidized federal water in the west

• Bush’s Department of Education challenged the legality of college scholarships targeted for racial minorities in 1990

• By 1992 the rate of unemployment exceeded 7% with the federal budget deficit continuing to grow and thus, Bush was forced to increase taxes, in order to generate revenue for the federal government

Bill Clinton: The First Baby-Boomer President

• Democrats nominated Bill Clinton in election of 1992 with the democrats promoting growth, strong defense, and anti-crime policies while campaigning to stimulate the economy

• Republicans chose Bush as their nominee and focused on “family values”

• Clinton won the election

• Democrats gained control of both the House and the Senate and hired minorities and more women in Congress and his presidential cabinet

A False Start for Reform

• Clinton called for accepting homosexuals in armed forces and had to settle for a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy which unoffically accepted gays and lesbians

• Hillary Clinton was given the job of revamping the U.S.’s health adn medical care system

• Clinton’s policies led to a surplus and the budget with him shrinking the federal deficit to its lowest level in 10 years by 1998

• A radical Muslim group bombed the World Trade Center in New York, on February 26, 1993, killing 6 people

The Politics of Distrust

• Newt Gingrich led Republicans on an attack of Clinton’s liberal failures in 1994

• A conservative Congress passed the Welfare Reform Bill which made cuts to the welfare programs

  • Congress couldn’t agree on a budget, leading to the government shutting down in 1995

• Clinton won the election of 1996

Clinton Again

• Clinton was more of political moderate in his 2nd term

• Economy was booming in the late 1990s because of the Federal Reserve Board’s low interest rates and the growth of the Internet

• North American Free Trade Agreement was passed in 1993 with it creating a free-trade zone between Mexico, Canada, and the United States while eliminating tariffs between the countries

• World Trade Organization was created in 1994 with it promoting trade between participating countries

• In his second term, Clinton fought for domestic issues that consisted of the fight against tobacco companies and the fight for gun control

Problems Abroad

• Clinton struggled to develop American foreign policy that didn’t focus around combating communism

• Initially, Clinton criticized China for its human rights abuse but eventually ended up supporting China, upon realizing how important trade with it was for America

• Clinton committed American troops to NATO to keep peace in former Yugoslavia

  • Clinton led the reconciliation meeting between Israel’s Rabin and Palestinian Arafat at the White House

  • Hopes for peace in the Middle East ended with Rabin’s assassination

Scandal and Impeachment

• It was found that Clinton had an affair with a White House Intern, Monica Lewinsky in 1998

• Clinton lied about the affair under oath leading to the House of Republicans passing two articles of impeachment against Clinton: perjury before a grand jury and obstruction of justice

• Senate voted to remove Clinton from office in 1999

• Republicans failed to obtain the ⅔ majority needed

Clinton's Legacy

• American economy prospered under Clinton, largely due to the global economic expansion

• Clinton negotiated a deal to receive immunity from possible legal action over the Lewinsky scandal, just before leaving office
  

The Bush-Gore Presidential Battle

• Democrats nominated Albert Gore for president while the Republicans nominated George W. Bush

• Bush won the nomination largely due to his father, George H. W. Bush

• Bush supported returning the federal budget surplus back to the people in the form of tax cuts and giving money to private institutions that helped the poverty stricken

• Gore supported smaller tax cuts and overall strengthening of Social Security

• It was a close election with Florida’s electoral votes deciding the victor with it being uncertain who won Florida’s ballots for 5 weeks as some were defective or unreadable

• Supreme Court eventually ruled that Bush won the presidency with Bush having won more electoral votes despite having lost the popular vote

Reelecting George W. Bush

• Bush wanted to be considered a “compassionate conservative” with him supporting tax cuts and a constitutional amendment for banning gay marriage

• Republicans are nominated Bush in the election of 2004 while the Democrats nominated John F. Kerry

• Bush won the election of 2004