ch 40 outline

Ch 40

The Election of Ronald Reagan, 1980

--->Ronald Reagan backed a political philosophy that condemned federal intervention in local affairs, favoritism for minorities, and the elitism of arrogant bureaucrats

---> "neoconservatives"-supporting free-market capitalism, questioning liberal welfare programs and affirmative-action policies, and calling for reassertion of traditional values of individualism and the centrality of family

--->Ronald Reagan won the election of 1980, beating Democratic president Jimmy Carter

The Regan Revolution

--->Iranian's released the hostages on Reagan's Inauguration Day, January 20, 1981, after 444 days of captivity

--->to the dismay of environmentalists, James Watt became the secretary of the interior

---> proposed a new federal budget that called for cuts of $35 billion, mostly in social programs like food stamps and federally-funded job-training centers

--->On March 6, 1981, Reagan was shot

---> 12 days later, Reagan recovered and returned to work

The Battle of the Budget

--->Reagan made tax cuts, amounting to 25% across-the-board reductions over a period of 3 years

---> In August 1981, Congress approved a set of tax reforms that lowered individual tax rates, reduced federal estate taxes, and created new tax-free saving plans for small investors
---> anti-inflationary polices that caused the recession of 1982 had actually been initiated by the Federal Reserve Board in 1979, during Carter's presidency

--->income gaps widened between the rich and the poor

---> Some economists located the sources of the economic upturn in the massive military expenditures

---> Reagan gave the Pentagon nearly $2 trillion in the 1980s

Reagan Renews the Cold War

--->Reagan's strategy for dealing with the Soviet Union was simple

---> by enormously expanding U.S. military capabilities, he could threaten the Soviets with an expensive new round in the arms race

---> In March 1983, Reagan announced his intention to pursue a high-technology missile-defense system called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also known as Star Wars

---> The plan called for orbiting battle satellites in space that could fire laser beams to vaporize intercontinental missile on liftoff

--->In 1983, a Korean passenger airliner was shot down when it flew into Soviet airspace

---> By the end of 1983, all arms-control negotiations were broken, and the Cold War was intensified

Troubles Abroad

--->In June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon, seeking to destroy the guerrilla bases from which Palestinian fighters attacked Israel

---> In 1979, Reagan sent "military advisors" to El Salvador to prop up the pro-American government

---> In October 1983, he dispatched a heavy-fire-power invasion force to the island of Grenada, where a military coup had killed the prime minister and brought Marxists to power

Round Two for Reagan

--->Ronald Reagan overwhelmingly won the election of 1984, beating Democrat Walter Mondale and his woman vice presidential nominee, Geraldine Ferraro

--->Foreign policy issues dominated Reagan's second term

---> Mikhail Gorbachev became the chairman of the Soviet Communist party in March 1985 --->Glasasnost and Perestroika, aimed at ventilating the Soviet society by introducing free speech and a measure of liberty, and reviving the Soviet economy by adopting many of the free-market practices, respectively

---> In December 1985, Reagan and Gorbachev signed the IFN treaty, banning all intermediate-range nuclear missiles from Europe

The Iran-Contra Imbroglio

--->Two foreign policy problems arose to Reagan

---> the continuing captivity of a number of American hostages seized by Muslim extremist groups in battered Lebanon

---> continuing grip on power of the left-wing Sandinista government in Nicaragua

--->November 1986, news of the secret dealings broke and ignited a firestorm of controversy

--->Criminal indictments were brought against Oliver North, Admiral John Poindexter, and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger

Reagan's Economic Legacy

--->Ronald Reagan had taken office vowing to stimulate the American economy by rolling back government regulations, lowering taxes, and balancing the budget

--->combination of tax reduction and huge increases in military spending caused $200 billion in annual deficits

--->In the early 1990s, median household income actually declined

The Religious Right

--->In 1979, Reverend Jerry Falwell founded a political organization called the Moral Majority

---> He preached with great success against sexual permissiveness, abortion, feminism, and the spread of gay rights

Conservatism in the Courts

--->The Supreme Court had become Reagan's principal instrument in the "cultural wars"

----> By the time he had left office, Reagan had appointed 3 conservative-minded judges, including Sandra Day O'Connor, the first women to become a Supreme Court Justice

---> Reaganism rejected two icons of the liberal political culture

---> affirmative action and abortion

--->Affirmative Action - In two cases in 1989 (Ward's Cove Packing v. Antonia and Martin v. Wilks), the Court made it more difficult to prove that an employer practiced racial discrimination in hiring

--->Abortion - In Roe v. Wade (1973), the Court had prohibited states from making laws that interfered with a woman's right to an abortion during the early months of pregnancy

---> In Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989), the Supreme Court approved a Missouri law that imposed certain restrictions on abortion, signaling that a state could legislate in an area in which Roe had previously forbidden them to legislate

---> In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the Court ruled that states could restrict access to abortion as long they did not place an "undue burden" on the woman

Referendum on Reagansim in 1988

--->"Black Monday," October 19, 1987, the stock market plunged 508 points-the largest one-day decline in history

--->The Republicans nominated George Bush for the election of 1988

---> Black candidate Jesse Jackson, a rousing speech-maker who hoped to forge a "rainbow collation" of minorities and the disadvantaged, campaigned energetically, but the Democrats chose Michael Dukakis

--->Despite Reagan's recent problems in office, George Bush won the election

George Bush and the End of the Cold War

--->George Bush had gained a fortune in the oil business in Texas

---> He served as a congressman and then held various posts in several Republican administrations, including ambassador to China, ambassador to the United Nations, director of the CIA, and vice president

--->In 1989, thousands of prodemocracy demonstrators protested in Tiananmen Square in China

--->In early 1989, the Solidarity movement in Poland toppled the communist regime

---> Communist regimes also collapsed in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Romania

---> In December 1989, the Berlin Wall came down, and the two Germanies were reunited in October 1990

--->In August 1991, a military coup attempted to preserve the communist system by trying to dislodge Gorbachev from power

---> With support of Boris Yelstin, the president of the Russian Republic (one of the several republics that composed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or USSR), Gorbachev foiled the plotters

----> In December 1991, Gorbachev resigned as Soviet president

--->In 1991, the Chechnyan minority tried to declare its independence from Russia

---> Boris Yelstin was forced to send in Russian troops

--_>In 1990, the white regime in South Africa freed African leader Nelson Mandela, who had served 27 years in prison for conspiring for overthrow the government

--->Four years later, he was elected as South Africa's president

---> In 1990, free elections removed the leftist Sandinistas in Nicaragua from power

---> In 1992, peace came to El Salvador

The Persian Gulf Crisis

--->On August 2, 1990, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, seeking oil

---> The United Nations Security Council condemned the invasion and on August 3, demanded the immediate withdrawal of Iraq's troops

----> After Hussein refused to comply by the mandatory date of January 15, 1991, the United States spearheaded a massive international military deployment, sending 539,000 troops to the Persian Gulf region

Fighting "Operation Desert Storm"

--->On January 16, 1991, the U.S. and the U.N. launched a 37-day air war against Iraq

--->American general Norman Schwarzkopf, planned to soften the Iraqis with relentless bombing and then send in waves of ground troops and armor

---> On February 23, the land war, "Operation Desert Storm," began.  Lasting only 4 days, Saddam Hussein was forced to sign a cease-fire on February 27

Bush on the Home Front

--->President Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990, prohibiting discrimination against citizens with physical or mental disabilities

---> In 1992, he signed a major water projects bill that reformed the distribution of subsidized federal water in the West

---> In 1990, Bush's Department of Education challenged the legality of college scholarships targeted for racial minorities

--->In 1991, Bush nominated conservative African American Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.

--->By 1992, the unemployment rate had exceeded 7%, and the federal budget deficit continued to grow

Bill Clinton:   The First Baby-Boomer President

--->For the election of 1992, the Democrats chose Bill Clinton as their candidate (despite accusations of womanizing and draft evasion) and Albert Gore, Jr. as his running mate

--->The Republicans dwelled on "family values" and selected Bush for the presidency and J. Danforth Quayle for the vice presidency.

--->Third party candidate, Ross Perot entered the race and ended up winning 19,237,247 votes, although he won no Electoral votes

--->Clinton won the election of 1992, by a count of 370 to 168 in the Electoral College

--->Presidency Clinton placed in Congress and his presidential cabinet minorities and more women, including the first female attorney general, Janet Reno, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Donna Shalala, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the Supreme Court

A False Start for Reform

--->Octoober 1993, critics blasted it as cumbersome, confusing, and stupid, yhe previous image of Hillary as an equal political partner of her husband changed to a liability

---->In 1993, Clinton passed the Brady Bill, a gun-control law named after presidential aide James Brady, who had been wounded in President Reagan's attempted assassination

--->By 1996, Clinton had shrunk the federal deficit to its lowest levels in ten years

--->In July 1994, Clinton convinced Congress to pass a $30 billion anticrime bill

--->On February 26, 1993, a radical Muslim group bombed the World Trade Center in New York, killing six people

---> On April 19, 1993, a fiery standoff at Waco, Texas between the government and the Branch Davidian cult took place; it ended in a huge fire that killed 82 people

---> On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh bombed a federal building in Oklahoma, killing 169 people.  By the time all these events had taken place, few Americans trusted the government

The Politics of Distrust

--->In 1994, Newt Gingrich led Republicans on a sweeping attack of Clinton's liberal failures with a conservative "Contract with America"

--->In the election of 1996, Clinton beat Republican Bob Dole

---> Ross Perot, the third party candidate, again finished third

Problems Abroad

--->Clinton sent troops to Somalia, but eventually withdrew them

--->Clinton committed American troops to NATO to keep the peace in the former Yugoslavia and sent 20,000 troops to return Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power in Haiti

---> He fully supported the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that made a free-trade zone surrounding Mexico, Canada, and the U.S

---> He also provided $20 billion to Mexico in 1995 to help its faltering economy

A Sea of Troubles

--->The end of the Cold War left the U.S. probing for a diplomatic formula to replace anti-Communism, revealing misconduct by the CIA and the FBI

--->Political reporter Joe Klein wrote Primary Colors, mirroring some of Clinton's personal life/womanizing

--->In 1993, White House councilman, Vincent Foster, Jr. apparently committed suicide, perhaps overstressed at having to (possibly immorally) manage Clinton's legal and financial affairs