Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. A member of the Republican Party, he became an important figure in the American conservative movement. The period encompassing his presidency is known as the Reagan era. Born in Tampico, Illinois, Reagan graduated from Eureka College in 1932 and was hired the next year as a sports broadcaster in Iowa. In 1937, he moved to California where he became a well-known film actor. During his acting career, Reagan was president of the Screen Actors Guild twice from 1947 to 1952 and from 1959 to 1960. In the 1950s, he hosted General Electric Theater and worked as a motivational speaker for General Electric. During the 1964 presidential election, Reagan's "A Time for Choosing" speech launched his rise as a leading conservative figure. After being elected governor of California in 1966, he raised state taxes, turned the state budget deficit into a surplus, and implemented crackdowns on university protests. Following his loss to Gerald Ford in the 1976 Republican Party presidential primaries, Reagan won the Republican Party's nomination and then obtained a landslide victory over President Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential election. In his first term as president, Reagan began implementing "Reaganomics", a policy involving economic deregulation and cuts to both taxes and government spending during a period of stagflation. On the world stage, he escalated the arms race, increased military spending, shifted Cold War policy away from détente, and ordered the 1983 invasion of Grenada. Reagan's first term included his survival of an assassination attempt, a well-publicized fight with public-sector labor unions, an expansion of the war on drugs, and his slow response to the AIDS epidemic. In the 1984 presidential election, he was elected to a second term by defeating former vice president Walter Mondale in one of the largest landslide victories in American history. Foreign affairs dominated his second term, including the 1986 bombing of Libya, the secret and illegal sale of arms to Iran to fund the Contras, and engaging in negotiations with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, which culminated in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Reagan left the presidency in 1989 with the American economy having experienced a significant reduction of inflation, a decline in the unemployment rate, and the longest peacetime economic expansion in US history at that time. The national debt had nearly tripled since 1981 as a result of his tax cuts and increased military spending outweighing his cuts to domestic discretionary spending. Reagan's foreign policies also contributed to the end of the Cold War. Although he planned an active post-presidency, those plans were hindered after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1994. His physical and mental capacities gradually deteriorated leading to his death in 2004. His tenure constituted a realignment toward conservative policies in the United States, and he is often considered an icon of American conservatism. Historical rankings of US presidents have typically placed Reagan in the middle to upper tier, and his post-presidential approval ratings by the general public have generally remained high. ### Early life Ronald Wilson Reagan was born on February 6, 1911, in an apartment in Tampico, Illinois, as the younger son of Nelle Clyde Wilson and Jack Reagan. Nelle was committed to the Disciples of Christ, which believed in the Social Gospel. She led prayer meetings and ran mid-week prayers at her church when the pastor was out of town. Reagan credited her spiritual influence and he became a Christian. According to American political figure Stephen Vaughn, Reagan's values came from his pastor, and the First Christian Church's religious, economic and social positions "coincided with the words, if not the beliefs of the latter-day Reagan". Jack focused on making money to take care of the family, but this was complicated by his alcoholism. Reagan had an older brother, Neil. The family lived in Chicago, Galesburg, and Monmouth before returning to Tampico. In 1920, they settled in Dixon, Illinois, living in a house near the H. C. Pitney Variety Store Building. Reagan attended Dixon High School, where he developed interests in drama and football. His first job was as a lifeguard at the Rock River in Lowell Park. In 1928, Reagan began attending Eureka College, which Nelle approved because of its affiliation with the Disciples of Christ. He was a mediocre student who participated in cheerleading, sports, drama, and campus politics. He became student body president and joined a student strike that resulted in the college president's resignation. Reagan was initiated as a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity and served as president of the local chapter. Reagan played at the guard position for the 1930 and 1931 Eureka Red Devils football teams and recalled a time when two Black teammates were refused service at a segregated hotel; he invited them to his parents' home nearby in Dixon and his parents welcomed them. At the time, his parents' stance on racial questions was unusually progressive in Dixon. Reagan himself had grown up with very few Black Americans and felt oblivious to racial discrimination. ### Presidency === First inauguration === Reagan was inaugurated as the 40th president of the United States on January 20, 1981. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger administered the presidential oath of office. In his inaugural address, Reagan commented on the country's economic malaise, arguing, "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem". As a final insult to President Carter, Iran waited until Reagan had been sworn in before announcing the release of their American hostages. === "Reaganomics" and the economy === Reagan advocated a laissez-faire philosophy, and promoted a set of neoliberal reforms dubbed "Reaganomics", which included monetarism and supply-side economics. ==== Taxation ==== Reagan worked with the boll weevil Democrats to pass tax and budget legislation in a Congress led by Tip O'Neill, a liberal who strongly criticized Reaganomics. He lifted federal oil and gasoline price controls on January 28, 1981, and in August, he signed the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 to dramatically lower federal income tax rates and require exemptions and brackets to be indexed for inflation starting in 1985. Amid growing concerns about the mounting federal debt, Reagan signed the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982, one of the eleven times Reagan raised taxes. The bill doubled the federal cigarette tax, rescinded a portion of the corporate tax cuts from the 1981 tax bill, and according to Paul Krugman, "a third of the 1981 cut" overall. Many of his supporters condemned the bill, but Reagan defended his preservation of cuts on individual income tax rates. By 1983, the amount of federal tax had fallen for all or most taxpayers, with taxes for higher-income people decreasing the most. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 reduced the number of tax brackets and top tax rate, and almost doubled personal exemptions. Reagan believed the tax cuts would not have increased the deficit as long as there was enough economic growth and spending cuts. His policies proposed that economic growth would occur when the tax cuts spurred investments. This theoretical relationship has been illustrated by some with the controversial Laffer curve. Critics labeled this "trickle-down economics", the belief that tax policies that benefit the wealthy will spread to the poor. Milton Friedman and Robert Mundell argued that these policies invigorated America's economy and contributed to the economic boom of the 1990s. ==== Inflation and unemployment ==== Reagan took office in the midst of stagflation. The economy briefly experienced growth before plunging into a recession in July 1981. As Federal Reserve chairman, Paul Volcker fought inflation by pursuing a tight money policy of high interest rates, which restricted lending and investment, raised unemployment, and temporarily reduced economic growth. In December 1982, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) measured the unemployment rate at 10.8 percent. Around the same time, economic activity began to rise until its end in 1990, setting the record for the (then) longest peacetime expansion. In 1983, the recession ended and Reagan nominated Volcker to a second term in fear of damaging confidence in the economic recovery. Reagan appointed Alan Greenspan to succeed Volcker in 1987. Greenspan raised interest rates in another attempt to curb inflation, setting off the Black Monday stock market crash, although the markets eventually recovered. By 1989, the BLS measured unemployment at 5.3 percent. The inflation rate dropped from 12 percent during the 1980 election to under 5 percent in 1989. Likewise, the interest rate dropped from 15 percent to under 10 percent. Yet, not all shared equally in the economic recovery, and both economic inequality and the number of homeless individuals increased during the 1980s. Critics have contended that a majority of the jobs created during this decade paid the minimum wage. ==== Government spending ==== In 1981, in an effort to keep it solvent, Reagan approved a plan for cuts to Social Security. He later backed…