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Presidency Chart – Ronald Reagan (40th) (1981 - 1989)
The Election of 1980
Candidates:
Carter = Democrat
Reagan = Republican
___________________ = Independent
The Election of 1984
Candidates:
Walter Mondale = Democrat
Geraldine Ferraro = Demo. V-P Nominee
Ronald Reagan = Republican
Issues:
Issues:
Why not a close election?
Close election?
No
Reagan Revolution:
“Great Communicator”:
1st
Domestic Policy
Term (1981-1985):
Foreign Policy
SDI (Star Wars)
Proposal by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March
Reaganomics:
macroeconomic thought that argues that economic
23, 1983 to use ground-based and space-based
growth can be most effectively created using
systems to protect the United States from attack by
incentives for people to produce (supply) goods and strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. The initiative
services, such as adjusting income tax and capital
focused on strategic defense rather than the prior
gains tax rates
strategic offense doctrine of mutual assured
Economic Recovery Act (1981)
destruction (MAD). It gained the popular name Star
A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1954
Wars after the 1977 movie by George Lucas
to encourage economic growth through reductions in
NUTS vs. MAD
individual income tax rates, the expensing of
Nuclear utilization target selection (NUTS) was a
depreciable property, incentives for small businesses,
strategy developed during the Cold War as a means
and incentives for savings, and for other purpose
for one world nuclear power to achieve victory
Recession
against another world nuclear power. To be
A decline in a country's real gross domestic product
(GDP), or negative real economic growth, for two or victorious, the attacker had to destroy the target
country's nuclear arsenal in a massive first strike. The
more successive quarters of a year.
ability to do so would then have given the attacker
Deregulation
term which gained widespread currency in the period superiority in the nuclear arms race and relieve them
from the threat of mutual assured destruction (MAD).
1970-2000, can be seen as a process by which
governments remove, reduce, or simplify restrictions Solidarity
It was the first non-communist trade union in a
on business and individuals with the intent of
communist country. In the 1980s it constituted a
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encouraging the efficient operation of markets.
Assassination Attempt (1981)
The Reagan assassination attempt occurred on
March 30, 1981, just 69 days into the presidency of
Ronald Reagan. While leaving a speaking
engagement at the Washington Hilton Hotel in
Washington, D.C., President Reagan and three
others were shot and wounded by John Hinckley, Jr.,
S & L Bailout
Air Traffic Controllers Strike
Air Traffic Controller union declared a strike,
seeking better working conditions, better pay and a
32-hour workweek. In doing so, the union violated a
law that banned strikes by government unions.
However, several government unions (including one
representing employees of the Postal Service) had
declared strikes in the intervening period without
penalties. Ronald Reagan, however, declared the
PATCO strike a "peril to national safety" and
ordered them back to work under the terms of the
Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. Only 1,500 of the more
than 13,000 of the controllers returned to work.
PATCO hoped the strike would disrupt the national
air system, and that they could use that as a
bargaining tool. However Reagan gave union
members 48 hours to return, knowing that
Transportation Secretary Drew Lewis had secretly
trained replacements. The airplanes kept flying at
80% of normal. Reagan fired the 11,345 striking air
traffic controllers who had ignored the order and
banned them from federal service for three years
(which was later rescinded by the President).
Sandra Day O’Connor
She served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme
Court of the United States from 1981 until her
retirement from the bench in 2006. The first woman
to serve on the Supreme Court, she was considered a
strict constructionist but was a crucial swing vote on
the Court for many years because of her case-bycase approach to jurisprudence and her relatively
moderate political views.
broad anti-communist social movement. The
government attempted to destroy the union with the
martial law of 1981 and several years of repressions,
but in the end it had to start negotiating with the
union. The Roundtable Talks between the weakened
government and Solidarity-led opposition led to
semi-free elections in 1989. By the end of August a
Solidarity-led coalition government was formed and
in December Wałęsa was elected President of Poland.
KAL 007
a Korean Air Lines civilian airliner shot down by
Soviet jet interceptors on September 1, 1983 just west
of Sakhalin island. 269 passengers and crew,
including US congressman Lawrence McDonald,
were aboard KAL 007; there were no known
survivors. The aircraft had violated Soviet airspace
and the Soviet Union stated it did not believe the
aircraft was civilian and said that it believed it had
entered Soviet airspace as a deliberate provocation by
the United States, the purpose being to test its
military response capabilities, repeating the
provocation of Korean Air Flight 902, also shot down
by Soviet aircraft over the Kola Peninsula in
1978.The incident attracted a storm of protest from
across the world, particularly from the United States.
Evil Empire Speech
Middle East:
Lebanon
Libya
Iran-Iraq War
2nd Term (1985-1989)
Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989)
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This decision held that state regulation of abortion
was constitutional if it provided exceptions for the
health of the mother and if it didn't ban abortions
contrary to the trimester regime of Roe v. Wade.
Although O'Connor joined the majority, which also
included Rehnquist, Scalia, Kennedy, and White, in
a concurring opinion she refused to explicitly
overturn Roe.
Tax Reform Act (1986)
Lowered taxes for upper tax brackets and across the
board; income tax code broadened the tax base and
eliminated many tax shelters and other preferences.
Immigration Reform & Control Act (1986)
The Act made it illegal to knowingly hire or recruit
undocumented immigrants (immigrants who do not
possess lawful work authorization), required
employers to attest to their employees' immigration
status, and granted amnesty to undocumented
immigrants who entered the United States before
January 1, 1982 and had resided there continuously.
Iran-Contra Scandal
A political scandal which was revealed in 1986 as a
result of earlier events during the Reagan
administration. It began as an operation to increase
U.S.-Iranian relations, wherein Israel would ship
weapons to a moderate, politically influential group
of Iranians opposed to the Ayatollah Khomeni; the
U.S. would reimburse Israel with those weapons and
receive payment from Israel. The moderate Iranians
agreed to do everything in their power to achieve the
release of six U.S. hostages, who were being held by
the terrorist group Hezbollah. The plan eventually
deteriorated into an arms-for-hostages scheme, in
which members of the executive branch sold
weapons to Iran in exchange for the release of the
American hostages, without the authorization of
President Ronald Reagan. Large modifications to the
plan were conjured by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver
North of the National Security Agency in late 1985;
in North's plan, a portion of the proceeds from the
weapon sales were diverted to fund anti-Sandinista
and anti-communist rebels, or Contras, in Nicaragua.
President Ronald Reagan did not authorize this plan,
nor was he aware that the funds were being sent to
the Contras
Western Hemisphere:
Nicaragua
El Salvador
Grenada
USSR:
Gorbachav
INF Treaty
Fall of the Iron Curtain
Mergers:
3
Black Monday
Stock markets around the world 'crashed', shedding a
huge value in a very short period. The crash began in
Hong Kong, spread west through international time
zones to Europe, hitting the United States after other
markets had already declined by a significant margin
Challenger Explosion
Space Shuttle operated by NASA, broke apart 73
seconds into its flight leading to the deaths of its
seven crew members. The spacecraft disintegrated
over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of central
Florida, United States at 11:39 a.m. EST on January
28, 1986. Teacher, Christa McAulliffe onboard.
Culture War?
Economic Legacy
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