Ronald Reagan's Life and Accomplishments

Ronald Wilson Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois on February 6, 1911 to Nelle Wilson and John Edward Reagan. His father, also known as Jack Reagan, came from an Irish background, while his mother was a Scottish and English mix. Reagan had only one sibling, his brother, Neil Reagan. He attended a high school nearby what he considers his hometown, Dixon. At Dixon high school, he served as student body president and participated in football,basketball, track, and school plays. After graduating from Dixon High, he proceeded to attend Eureka College, a small liberal arts institution and majored in economics and sociology. While he attended college, he eventually became interested in drama. He attended a screen test in 1937, this won him a contract in Hollywood. In the next two decades, he had appeared in 50 films. Reagan was married twice, first to Jane Wyman, and second to Nancy Davis. Reagan had two children with each of his wives.

Ronald Wilson Reagan was born on February 6, 1911 to Jack and Nelle Reagan in Tampico, Illinois. The Reagan family moved to Dixon in 1920, where Ronald excelled in high school, earning an athletic scholarship to Eureka College. Ronald majored in economics and sociology without knowing how useful this decision would be in 1981. After graduating from Eureka in 1932 he got

“The Reagan Revolution was an effort to scale back the scope of government, lower taxes, and reinvigorate the Cold War.” (Voices of Freedom, pg. 321). He proved that reducing excessive tax rates encourages growth, increases economic activity, and boosts tax revenues. Reagan said, “I believe we, the Americans of today, are ready to act worthy of ourselves, ready to do what must be done to ensure happiness and liberty of ourselves, our children, and our children’s children…of freedom and a beacon of hope for those who do not now have freedom.” (Voice of Freedom, 323) He accomplished and helped the economy tremendously. I truly believe that he made United States of America a better place for us to settle

Ronald Reagan worked to bring the ideal of American back to the country, to set the economy on the right track, and to end the Communist threat that had been present since the end of World War II. Lowered the federal income tax rate significantly with the signing of the Economic Recovery Tax Act. Escalated the War on Drugs campaign and specified a mandatory minimum penalty for drug offenses. Increased spending on national defense and diplomacy and ushered in a close to the Cold War.

Reagan had a big role in the change of the economic policies. When Reagan took office the economy was one of the double-digit inflation and high interest rates. During the campaign Reagan promised to restore the free market from too much government regulation and encourage private initiative and

Reagan’s experience with communism and the Black List during his acting career changed his political views from liberal to conservative. He ran for the Governor of California and was elected becoming the 33rd Governor. Reagan decided to run for the 1980 Presidential campaign against President Jimmy Carter. Reagan won the campaign with 489 electoral votes and choose George Bush as his running mate. Reagan addressed the rising economic issues in his inaugural speech saying, "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem." After 69 days of office Reagan was shot by an attempt of assassination he soon recovered though and was quickly back in office. The near death experience only increased the president's popularity and made Reagan more determined than ever. Due to this increased popularity it allowed Reagan and Bush to be re-elected for a second term in 1984 by an unprecedented amount of electoral votes.

When he took office, the inflation rate was 13.5%, tax rates were high, the unemployment rate was 7.6%, and there had been a long period of stagflation. In his first inaugural address, he said “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Ronald Reagan believed that if government spending is reduced, then the United States could achieve economic recovery. He also believed that by reducing the marginal tax rates on income from both labor and capital, reducing regulation, and reducing inflation by controlling the growth of the money supply the United States’ economy would improve. This idea became known as “Reaganomics”. Reaganomics was the biggest attempt to change the economic state of the United States since the New Deal in

A few months later, he had an issue to be resolved involving the air traffic workers. They went on strike demanding a higher wage, but Reagan was not bothered by this problem yet simply told them to go back to work or get fired. With the idea of helping the economy by introducing budget suggestions, most of them were passed. Although problems occur often, the recession was almost as big of a problem as the Great Depression. It took a few years to pull the economy all together again, but this significantly kept the unemployment and inflation relatively low through the rest of his term. Some of the citizens could have been irritated during this time because this helped mainly the wealthy people. Considering the military portion of the budget, Reagan announced that the military has grown weak and needed to be modernized in equipment and combat. Reagan began discussing with the Soviet Union, the reduction of nuclear weapons. This issue resulted in a treaty that eliminated nuclear force. These are not all of Reagan’s accomplishments, but just a few that he made during his

Ronald Reagan was born to John and Nelle Reagan on February 6, 1911. Nelle raised Ronald in church and tried to impart on him the love of God which she knew. Ronald embraced the same beliefs in God that his mother had, and was baptized in their church in 1922. His baptism is what was the beginning of Ronald Reagan becoming active in his church. In 1926, at the age of 15, he started teaching a Sunday School class and didn’t stop teaching that class until he left for college.

Reagan, at the age of 11, became very devout in religion. He aspired to become a Disciple of Christ and became baptized by a Disciple of Christ. Throughout his life, Reagan constantly remained vigilant in his religious endeavors. He believed in God and he believed in brotherhood. Through these two powerful belief structures, Reagan received support from within that he needed to pursue endeavors throughout

Ronald started his education at an elementary school in Dixon, it wasn't until high school where he found his love of acting. In high school Ronald did football, basketball, track and swimming. He attended in school plays and he was president of student council.

Ronald Reagan was born on February 6, 1991 in Tampico, Illinois. He attended Eureka College where he studied Economics and Sociology. After graduation, he was a radio sports announcer and then an actor for several decades. Eventually, he entered politics Initially, he was a liberal, but shifted to conservative beliefs before he became the governor of California in 1966. A few years after the end of his second term as governor, he ran for the United States presidency. In 1980, he won the election by a landslide (489 electoral votes to Jimmy Carter’s 49 electoral votes). During his two term presidency, he focused on cutting taxes, reducing government

Although many people have a very positive outlook and perspective on Ronald Reagan’s bold motives, he was a risk-taker and many people disagreed with his plan of actions. Despite lowering the poverty rates, the Reagan Administration set records for budget deficits. After scrutinizing President Carter for acquiring a $50 billion deficit, Reagan’s personal deficits exceeded $200 billion. He quadrupled the national debt in only a matter of eight years. Even though many Republicans blamed Congress for the deficits, all eight of the budgets Congress passed had less spending and smaller deficits than the budgets proposed by Reagan. James Tobin had this to say about Reagan’s leadership: “The awful truth is that Reaganomics was a fraud from the beginning. The moral of it’s failures and of it’s legacies is that a nation pays a heavy price when it entrusts its government and economy to simplistic ideologues—however smooth their performances on television. (James Tobin, 1988, pg. 103) Despite bringing poverty rates down, Reagan managed to increase the nation’s deficit by an all-time. Opposed to his bold decision-making, his standards of taking risks counteracted his main objective of decreasing the nation’s poverty.

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.

During the 1960s he officially became a Republican.In 1966 he went against Democrat Edmund Brown Sr. for governorship of California, and won by almost one million votes. In 1970, he was reelected as governor. In 1968 and 1976, Reagan was unable ] to win the nomination for president by the Republican party. However, in 1980 he was successful, and at age 69, he became the nation's oldest president. In March of 1981, a few months after his inauguration, he survived an assassination attempt by John Hinckley Jr., who suffered psychiatric problems. The bullet punctured one of Reagan's lungs and nearly missed his heart, but was back to work soon after. Ronald Reagans presidency is famous for the reduction of the federal government's control over its citizens. He is recognized for tax cuts which is known as “Reaganomics.” In his first term he had to make important decisions that would decide America's place in the Cold War against the Soviets. In his second term he signed an agreement with the leader of the Soviets which is recognized as settling the conflicts of the war. One of his famous speeches took place in Germany at the Berlin Wall. The famous line,“Tear down this wall.” from the speech challenged the Soviet leader and was taken down twenty nine months later and Germany was