Preview

Ronald Reagan

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
925 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan

On January 20, 1981, Ronald Reagan was elected the fortieth president of the United States and proceeded to serve two extremely successful terms in office. He was the 33rd Governor of California from 1967 to 1975 and had a successful career in film and television. He has been widely recognized as one of the greatest American Presidents and the main inspiration for the conservative movement from the 1970s to the present day.
Reagan burst onto to the political scene in 1966 when he won the race for California governor by nearly one million votes. He served as governor for the next eight years making massive changes to the California welfare and education system. In his first year as governor, he agreed to a large tax increase to close the budget deficit he inherited when spending cuts alone were insufficient to balance the budget. Reagan opposed President Richard Nixon’s plan to federalize welfare and establish a guaranteed annual income and was the only governor who opposed a National Governors Association resolution in favor of Nixon’s proposal. Reagan’s 1970 welfare reform plan became the 1990s blueprint for the widespread and successful state-based welfare reform experiments that culminated in sweeping welfare reform on the national level in 1996. After Nixon’s plan was defeated in Congress, Reagan embarked on his own welfare plan in California, as California was confronting a welfare crisis. California’s welfare rolls were growing by 40,000 a month by 1970. While California had 10 percent of the nation’s population, it had 16 percent of the nation’s total welfare caseload. Unless something was done, Reagan’s finance department told him, a tax increase would be necessary to meet the added fiscal burden.
His massive defense buildup forced the Soviets to confront their crumbling financial base. He rejected the legitimacy of Communism and in the Reagan Doctrine systematically challenged

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Ronald Reagan was the 40th President of the United States. He was both beloved and despised.…

    • 161 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    military budget by over 30 percent, which was well over billions of dollars. This meant that the United States knew they could attack the Soviet Union at any second if they wanted or needed to. Ronald Reagan is also well known for making his Berlin Wall speech, where in West Berlin he told them that they needed to “Tear down this wall” which is where the famous quote came from. The Berlin Wall was slowly destroying Europe by not only cutting a country in half, but also by cutting civilization apart. It would be necessary for it to be removed by the Soviet Union to end the Cold War.…

    • 474 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Reagan's main goal was achieving "peace through strength". At the end of Reagan's two terms in office, he felt he fulfilled his campaign pledge of 1980 to restore " The great, confident roar of American progress and growth and optimism". In 1966 Reagan was elected as Governor of California by a margin of a million voters; he was re-elected in 1970. He won the Republican…

    • 450 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Reagan has also improved the relationship with the Soviet Union in his second term in office. President Reagan’s conservative leading set a base for the upcoming president – President George Herbert Walker Bush.…

    • 511 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    “How do you tell a Communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin.” Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of The United States and 33rd Governor of California. Reagan represented the conservative Republican Party. Before his political career, Reagan acted in over 50 Hollywood films. As a child, he agreed with the Democratic Party, but as he grew older, he became a Republican. Reagan ran three times to become President of the Republican Party, and the third time, 1980, he won both the nomination and presidential elections. During his presidency, he cut taxes and increased the money spent on defense. While he was a President, the whole country experienced an economic upswing, which is mainly the reason why he was re-elected in 1984. Reagan strongly opposed the spread of communism and he tried to defeat the Soviet Union by speeding up the arms race. During his second term, he started to become closer with the Soviet Premier Mihail Gorbatšov. Even though he was known as optimistic,…

    • 992 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the most significant factors of Ronald Reagan’s first, few months in office was his courageous effort to transform the country’s economic policies. Reagan’s administration created a policy called “Reaganomics”, or “trickle-down” economics, which sought to cut taxes for the upper, middle, and lower classes to stimulate the economy. He reduced taxes to return the wealth to the working middle class. Instead of handing…

    • 681 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In 1966 Reagan’s political career began. He ran for Governor of California and won by a landside, and was re-elected in 1970. Running for president was the next step to his political career. When he did not receive the nominations for presidency in 1968 or 1976 he did not stop trying and in doing so he received a nomination from the Republican Party in 1980. Reagan defeated…

    • 727 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The election of Ronald Reagan to United States presidency in 1980 marked a departure from big government and the rise of modern day conservatism. Characterized by lowered taxes, praises of the free market, and a strengthened military, Reagan’s presidency left a lasting impression that revolutionized what it meant to be conservative in the United Sates.…

    • 3946 Words
    • 16 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Was Reagan A Realist

    • 404 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Reagan was ideological. He liked to delegate via his cabinet. He was a staunch anti-communist and wanted to place the pro-American spirit back into the people. He told his cabinet what he wanted done, and they did it their own way to get there. He not only increased the defense budget, he doubled it. Reagan was a realist. He supported rebels fighting communists known in the Reagan Doctrine. He was also around during the red scare, influencing his beliefs as well. He believed in returning to containment like after WWII. It would be contained by force if necessary. Reagan was also against the SALT treaty because Reagan wanted to negotiate from a place of strength. He engaged in proxy wars most notably in Nicaragua. He supported the contras, who…

    • 404 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ronald Reagan made many changes to the world during his presidency. He acheived difficult political task and ended the Soviet Union. He brought great things to the U.S.A and the world. At first he was a Democrat and then later changed to a Republican. Ronald Reagan made new political and economic initiatives; He brought down the Berlin Wall, spurred the war on drugs, and the economy saw a reduction of an inflation of 12.5% to 4.4%.…

    • 361 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Ronald Wilson Reagan was the fortieth president of the United States of America. He served from 1981-1989, winning his first election against Democrat Jimmy Carter. Ronald Reagan was the oldest man ever elected to be President of the United States; he broke his own record when he was re-elected in 1984. Reagan had a warm and friendly personality. Sixty-nine days into his first term as President, he was shot under his left arm by John Hinckley, Jr. Reagan’s poise and humor during his recovery brought him great popularity. President Reagan became known as “The Great Communicator” because of his skill in communicating with world leaders as well as ordinary citizens. In 1981, President Reagan appointed Sandra Day O’Connor to the Supreme Court,…

    • 243 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Reagan was willing to make the tough calls to get his mission accomplished, and to protect the United States from the growing sphere of Soviet influence. Carter had allowed communism to get a hold of Nicaragua, and for the leftist Iranians to hold Americans hostage. America was coming under attack from communism and it was necessary that the US respond in ways that end the conflicts rather than appease the, Reagan was not willing to negotiate in righteous ways. He sought to accomplish American security at any cost. He wanted his hostages back so he negotiated a deal to trade arms for cash, while simultaneously got him cash to fund the pro-US contras as they attempted to take on the communist Sandinistas.…

    • 1367 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ronald Reagan Influence

    • 832 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Ronald Reagan was a very important influence of the Cold War. Ronald Reagan was born February 6, 1911 in Tampico, IL. He served in the United States Air Force for eight years during WWII. Ronald Reagan was also an actor before becoming politically affiliated, and starred in several hit movies. Ronald Reagan served as California’s State governor of California for 2 terms. As president, Reagan negotiated many deals with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev during the end of the Cold War.…

    • 832 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    president in more than 50 years. Reagan’s philosophy was "Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." (pg.1). When Raegan became president he inherited a double-digit inflation. In order to combat recession, Reagan aggressively cut income taxes from 70% to 28% for the top income tax rate, and from 48% to 34% for the corporate tax rate (pg.1). Reaganomics was introduced in which Reagan based his policies on the theory of supply side economics, which states that tax cuts encourage economic expansion enough to eventually broaden the tax base. In time, the increased revenue from a stronger economy offsets the initial revenue loss from the tax cuts. Reagan 's tax cuts worked because tax rates were so high in the early '80s that they were in the "Prohibitive Range," according to the Laffer Curve (Journal pg.1). Reagan was able to eliminate most of the Nixon-era price controls. Reagan removed controls on oil and gas, cable television and long-distance phone service, as well as interstate bus service and ocean shipping (pg.1). Raegan also expanded Medicare, and increased the payroll tax to insure the financial condition of Social…

    • 1057 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    President Reagan's prediction of the collapse of Soviet communism had come true. America and its allies had prevailed in the Cold War. President Reagan's policies of preserving peace through strength and promoting the advancement of democracy around the world significantly contributed to this victory. President Reagan’s Farwell Speech summed up his achievements well, he says "The way I see it, there were two great triumphs, two things that I'm proudest of. One is the economic recovery...The other is the recovery of our morale. America is respected again in the world and looked to for leadership...They called it the Reagan Revolution. Well, I'll accept that, but for me it always seemed more like the great rediscovery, a rediscovery of our values and our common sense...The lesson of all this was...as long as we always remember our first principles and believe in ourselves, the future will be ours. And something else we learned. Once you begin a great movement, there's no telling where it will end. We meant to change a nation, and instead, we changed a…

    • 1229 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays

Related Topics