Reagan's Presidencies

Ronald Reagan, President of the United States from 1981 through 1989, created economic policies throughout his presidency that aimed to pull the United States out of a recession. His policies, called Reaganomics, reduced government spending and reduced tax rates in order to foster economic growth. Reagan also appointed many conservative judges to the Supreme Court and federal courts in order to shift ideologies to the right. Because of this, Reagan was both underrated and overrated as a president.

Reagan really focused on improving the economy during his presidency, with a plan he called Reaganomics, or supply side economics. The main parts of this plan were cuts on taxes and budgets, and monetary policy. Also, he wanted to reduce government regulation on businesses. He thought that these and increasing defense expenditures would heighten economic efficiency. Reagan managed to cut taxes by twenty five percent in three years. However, the plans did not work out at first, causing a recession that some call “The Great Inflation.” The national debt heightened substantially, and the rate of unemployment reached up to eleven percent. Despite these negative outcomes, the economy experienced a sudden growth and prosperity in 1983, which was

Conte & Karr (2001) report the economic growth of the 1980’s in the United States sees President Regan cutting taxes and slashing social programs. President Reagan also

While Reagan was in office the economy grew, inflation lessened, employment increased, and national defense was strengthened. He helped the economy by cutting taxes and government expenses. In 1984, Reagan won a second term due to his brilliance in his first. At the end of his presidency the nation had the longest period of peacetime prosperity without recession or depression.

The election of 1980 marked a ‘new political era’ that was ushered in by President Reagan and that followed on through the presidencies of George H. W. Bush and William Jefferson Clinton. These presidents were inaugurated at different times and succeeded the successes and the failures of their predecessors. Having came from different political backgrounds and having unique political and social beliefs, Bush, Reagan, and Clinton can only be analyzed through their foreign policies, domestic policies, achievements as well as shortcomings, and legacies.

One major reason Ronald Reagan was able to defeat Carter in the election of 1980 was because Carter failed to rescue the hostages from the American embassy, prior to the election. He had already run for president in 1968 and in 1976, but didn’t win until 1980 as a Republican nominee because he established himself as the conservative candidate with the support of like-minded organizations such as the American Conservative Union. Reagan had several policies to try to recover the economy, one of them being deregulation, in which he advocated limiting government involvement in business. Following this policy, he deregulated several industries from government control. Another policy was to reduce inflation by controlling the growth of the money

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930’s and President Lyndon B. Johnson Great Society in the 1960’s had several policies, which led to some good outcomes and some not so much. New norms that guided and redefined administration organizations led to the development of schools and educators and to the courses offered for the students. The great society held instruction with less eagerness yet viewed as not that critical. Rather the great society concentrated on more positions globally and acquiring government relief. The New Deal was to fix the unemployment by creating jobs and improve the economy. The Great Society was supporting Civil Rights, lower the unemployment, create a welfare state, and desegregation in education.

| led to a crisis in the savings and loan industry and an added burden for taxpayers.

President Ronald Reagan, the man who is accredited with ended the forty six year cold war was elected on Nov. 4, 1980. Reagan won his election with fifty percent of the popular vote over former President Jimmy Carter who had forty one percent. While Reagan as a president is praised for such successes as strengthening the national defense, stimulating growth in the U.S. economically, and as mentioned before he is considered the President who ended the Cold War. President Reagan had achieved many things by the end of his administration, but just as he had many successes his presidency was plagued with shortcomings and a handful of what could be considered flat out failures. The purpose of this writing is to establish and identify the ‘cons’ or failures of the Reagan administration, and provide a brief description of each different aspect of the administration.

Even though Reagan was very confident about his economic plan many others were weary of his ideas. George W. Bush Sr. proclaimed Reagan’s economic ideas as ‘Voodoo’ economics believing Reagan’s policy would not live up to its predicted outcome; ironically enough Bush and his son both adopted these policies during their presidencies. Many important congressmen had many fears in Reagan’s policies, they believed that imposing such tax cuts would raise inflation and cause higher interest rates. The public on the other hand, praised these

At the end of the Carter presidency, the nation’s idealistic dreams of the 60’s was worn down by inflation, foreign policy turmoil and rising crime rate, the nation was troubled by the late 70’s. Due to this many Americans were ready to embrace a new conservatism in social, economic and political life in the 80’s. In the 1980 bid for President, Reagan won the Republican nomination after two failed attempts in 1968 and 1976. Although Ronald Reagan once held Democratic views, he grew more conservative and he official took the side of the Republicans in the 1960’s. Reagans domestic views were the change Americans were looking for and Reagan, along with his running mate George H.W Bush, won the 1980 election. In his 1981 inauguration,

Both President Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan once they entered into office they decided to cut taxes. Obama passed $787 billion economic stimulus package which cut taxes, extended unemployment benefits, and funded many public works.(Amadeo, Obama) He first passed that package on 2008 and after that on 2010 he and congress passed a $858 billion tax cut. Similarly Reagan did something similar where starting his term he cut the income taxes from 70% to 28% for the top income bracket.(Amadeo, Reagan) He then unlike Obama cut spending on domestic programs but increased the defense budget. They both decided to fight the recession by applying tax cuts in hope of ending the financial crisis.

As President, Ronald Reagan encountered many significant events; from surviving an assassination attempt, to the space shuttle Challenger disaster. Perhaps the most significant event was the economic downturn. He came to office (much like President Obama) in the midst of an economic crisis; however, President Reagan was able to turn the economy around. How did he do this? In order to answer this question, you must first ask what the economy was like when he was sworn into office, how his policy changed from the prior administration’s policy, and how it contrasts our present economic policy.

Reagan led the move to cut government spending in 1981 by cutting more than $25 billion from welfare programs with another $20 billion to be implemented in 1982 and 1983.

Ronald Reagan was a beloved American president. However, he didn’t represent the prodigious archetype all citizens should follow. Reagan declared that the “government isn’t the solution to our problem” rather, “the government is the problem”. He decried that years of new deal-style tax- and- spend programs created a federal government that reminded him of a create who was all appetite at one end with no sense of responsibility on the other. In essence, he argues the government undermined one major sector of society. Under Johnson the welfare sector was booming. However, under Carter diplomacy was lacking as international crises got too out of hand for the dark-horse candidate to handle. Reagan pursued smaller government policies. He proposed a new federal budget that necessitated cuts of $35 billion, mostly on social programs like food stamps and federally funded job-training centers. Despite these cuts, increased military spending increased the national deficit. The second part of his economic program called for deep tax cuts amounting to 25% across-the-board reductions over a period of three years. His supply-side economics, though in theory made to aid all citizens by promising lower taxes that would increase government revenue because they would stimulate spending as a whole, didn’t aid all Americans. In fact, Reaganomics contributed to a greater disparity between the rich and the poor because the trickle-down effect only decreased taxes significantly for the rich and