Morning in America

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Morning in America

• The Reagan Years

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Ronald W. Reagan

• Born 1911 in Illinois
• Worked in radio, sports, and Hollywood
• Former New Deal liberal
• Felt too much government stifled free enterprise
• Gov. of Calif., 1967-75
• 1980 election
• Restore confidence in America

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Reagan in Knute Rockne, All American (1940)
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America continues shifting Right

• Religious revival of 1970s
• Rev. Jerry Falwell, Moral Majority
• Prayer in schools, women as homemakers, tough
  criminal laws
• Anti-feminist movement
• Phyllis Schlafly, Women Who Want to Be Women,
  Females Opposed to Equality
• Pro-life/anti-abortion movement
• National Right to Life Committee

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Schlafly
Falwell
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U.S. Presidential election map, 1980 (note voter
turnout was only 53. Where had all the voters
gone?)
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Reagan as President

• Reagan promised new era of less government, lower
  taxes, renewed prosperity, waning inflation,
  revived military strength, national pride.
• Reagans presidency marked by economic conditions
  and foreign developments in the 1980s
• Reaganomics
• Weakening the Evil Empire

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(No Transcript)
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Reaganomics

• Supply-side economic policy dubbed
  Reaganomics by supporters, voodoo economics
  by detractors.
• Slash tax rates and government spending
• Economic Recovery Tax Act (1981)
• Cut personal income taxes by 25
• Cut capital gains tax by 1/3
• More money in the hands of the affluent would
  benefit society at large through productive
  investment.

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Budget Cuts

• Summer 1983, major recovery underway, but larger
  deficit
• Massive defense spending
• Larger deficit than all previous presidents
  combined
• 1981-7 1.4 trillion
• 35 billion in budget cuts education and
  cultural programs, housing, food stamps, and
  school lunches
• safety net for the truly needy
• 100 billion in govt. revenue enhancements
  (taxes).

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U.S. Presidential election map, 1984
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The New Gilded Age? Boom to Gloom

• Increase in all kinds of debtpersonal,
  corporate, and government
• Americans saving lt4 of income
• Charge card economy and materialism
• Yuppies young, upwardly mobile urban
  professionals
• Oct. 19, 1987 Black Monday
• Bull market crashes
• Dow Jones plunged 508 points (22.6), almost
  double the 1929 12.8 crash
• 560 billion in paper value gone (amount larger
  than GNP of France)
• No depression, however, but recession.

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Yuppies
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Black Monday
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Regan with Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev, 1987
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Reagans Foreign Policy

• The Americas
• El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Grenada
• The Middle East
• Iran-Iraq War, the Palestinians, Libya
• The Soviet Union
• The Evil Empire
• Defense spending, SDI/Star Wars
• Iran-Contra Affair

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El Salvador, Nicaragua, and the Contras

• Communist threat in El Salvador, 1980
• Application of Truman Doctrine
• 1984, pro-American José Napoleón Duarte brings
  moderate stability
• Communist threat in Nicaragua
• Cuban-sponsored Sandinista government
• Funneling Soviet arms to Salvadoran rebels
• CIA trained guerilla Contras eventually oust
  Sandinista government brutal death squad
  tactics

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Contra soldiers in Nicaragua
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Middle East

• Iraq-Iran War, 1980-1984
• Reagan administration funneling arms and aid to
  Iraq
• Lebanon and Palestinians
• 1982, Israelis push PLO into Beirut
• Marines sent supervise PLO withdrawal
• Battles between Lebanese Muslims and Christians,
  PLO, Syrian invaders guised as peacekeepers, and
  Israeli bombings
• Oct. 23, 1983 Muslim suicide bomber kills 241
  Marines at base in Beirut airport

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Iran-Contra Affair

• Fall 1986, reports surface that U.S. with Israeli
  assistance had been selling arms to Iran to
  secure release of hostages in Lebanon
• Proceeds of sales funneled to Contras
• Secret operations run from White House basement
• Investigation blamed Reagan, Oliver North, and
  NSA John Poindexter

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U.S. Presidential election map, 1988