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1960-1980 increase in federal spending
In the two decades since 1960, federal spending had risen from about 18 percent of gross national product to nearly 23 percent. At the same time, the composition of the federal budget had been shifting from defense to entitlement programs, including Social Security and Medicare. In 1973 the budget of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare surpassed that of the Department of Defense (four decades of advancing New Deal and Great Societ ) -
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boll weevils
Term for conservative southern Democrats who voted increasingly for Republican issues during the Carter and Reagan administrations. -
Proposition 13
Californians staged a “tax revolt” in 1978. A successful California state ballot initiative that capped the state's real estate tax at 1 percent of assessed value. The proposition radically reduced average property tax levels, decreasing revenue for the state government. The California “tax quake” jolted other states and helped Ronald Reagan rise to presidential victory in 1980 and now proceeded to rattle the “welfare state” to its very foundations. -
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Margaret Thatcher"s partnership with Reagan
Conservative prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990. As an ideological partner to President Ronald Reagan, Thatcher enacted economic liberalization reforms and attempted to check the powers of labor unions in Britain. “Ronnie and Maggie,” strengthened the Anglo-American alliance through muscular foreign policy against a number of foes, especially the Soviet bloc. Free markets made free peoples and that shrinking government meant keeping their nations safer from communism. -
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Sandinistas vs. Contras (1979) + U.S. (1982-1988)
An anti-American leftist revolution had thrown the dictator of Nicaragua (1979,) Prez C ignored the (Sandinistas.) Prez R accused the Sandinistas of turning N into a base for Soviet & Cuban military. Pics taken from planes, determined that N leftists were shipping weapons to revolutionary forces in El Salvador, torn by violence since coup. Prez R sent military advisers to help the pro-Amer gov of El Salvado (contras,) & covert aid, including the CIA-engineered mining of harbors. -
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the religious right
1979, Reverend Jerry Falwell (evangelical minister) launched a political advocacy group, Moral Majority, against sexual permissiveness, abortion, feminism, & the spread of gay rights. The religious right was like 1960s left wing radicalism. Personal matters -> political movements, “identity politics,” like multiculturalism & affirmative action. In 2 years, MM had around 2 mil & 3 mil voters. Used radio, direct-mail marketing, & cable TV, “televangelists” millionaires, were conservative. -
Presidential Election of 1980
Reagan attacked Carter’s bad performance in foreign policy, the “big-government” philosophy of the Democratic party, inflation, sky-high interest rates, and a faltering economy. Carter countered with charges that Reagan was trigger-happy and might push the country into nuclear war. On election day the Republican had 51% of the popular vote, while 41% went to Carter and nearly 7 % of the electorate voted for liberal Republican congressman John Anderson. Republicans gained control of the Senate. -
Iranians related Hostages
The Iranians released the hostages from the hostage crisis on Reagan’s Inauguration Day, January 20, 1981, after 444 days of captivity. -
Failed Regan Assignation attempt
The new president’s political hand was further strengthened after a failed assassination attempt in March 1981 brought an outpouring of sympathy and support. -
Reagan's Tax Reduction
In late 1981 Congress approved a set of far-reaching tax reforms that lowered individual tax rates, reduced federal estate taxes, and created new tax-free savings plans for small investors. -
Sandra Day O’Connor First Female Judge on the Supreme court
The first female justice on the Supreme Court. A graduate of Stanford Law School, she served as an attorney, jurist, and politician in Arizona before being appointed to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan in 1981. On the bench, she was known as a moderate, frequently casting crucial swing votes in important cases. She retired in 2005. -
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The “Reagan recession”
Unemployment reached about 11% (1982,) businesses folded, & several bank failures jolted the nation’s financial system. The automobile industry had its dimmest performance in history. Battling against Japanese imports, major automakers reported losses in the hundreds of millions of $. The anti-inflationary “tight money” policies that led a recession had actually been launched by the Federal Reserve Board in 1979, but Democrats charged that the president’s budget cuts created an unfair wage gap. -
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Moral Majority
(Roughly around this timeframe) The conservative cause drew added strength from the emergence of a “New Right” movement that focused on cultural issues like abortion, pornography, homosexuality, feminism, & affirmative action. Increasingly politicized evangelical Christian groups like the Moral Majority became influential in New Right campaigns. Together, the culture-focused New Right and more traditional antigovernment conservatives were devoted to changing the character of American society. -
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Supply-side Economics
Supply-siders argued with budgetary discipline and tax reduction simulates new investment, productivity, dramatic economic growth, and even boost tax revenues, reducing the federal deficit. First the economy slid into its deepest recession since the 1930s; but got under way in 1983. However income gaps widened. Sporting Rolex watches and BMW sports cars.1.5 million people, yuppies, young, urban professionals, showcased the values of materialism and a pursuit of wealth that symbolized the1980s. -
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Ronald Reagan's Presidency
Fortieth president of the United States, 1981-1989. A former actor and California governor, he was elected in 1980 with a pronounced conservative mandate to fix the American economy by scaling back taxes and the role of government in business. Reagan was a staunch Cold Warrior whose massive defense spending added stress to the Soviet Union's military budget and may ultimately have contributed to the end of the Cold War. ("common Man" like Roosevelt's "Forgotten man") -
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Three Soviet Union Kremlin died
Dealing with the Soviet Union was additionally complicated by the inertia and ill health of the aging oligarchs in the Kremlin, three of whom died between late 1982 and early 1985. -
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Turmoil with Isreal, Lebanon, and the U.S.A
Israel, in June 1982 invaded neighboring Lebanon, seeking to suppress the guerrilla bases from which Palestinian fighters harassed Israel. The Palestinians were bloodily subdued, but Lebanon was dug into armed chaos. Prez R sent troops to Lebanon in 1983, but end up not bringing peace. A suicide bomber crashed an explosives-laden truck into a United States Marine barracks on October 23, 1983, killing 200+ marines. Prez R soon withdrew the remaining troops, while suffering no political damage. -
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)
Reagan administration plan announced in 1983 to create a missiledefense system over American territory to block a nuclear attack. Derided as “Star Wars” by critics, the plan typified Reagan's commitment to vigorous defense spending even as he sought to limit the size of government in domestic matters. The plan called for orbiting battle stations in space that could fire laser beams or other forms of concentrated energy to vaporize intercontinental missiles on liftoff. -
The Shooting Down of a Korean Airliner by USSR
Relations grew even more tense when the Soviets, in September 1983, blasted from the skies a Korean passenger airliner that had inexplicably violated Soviet airspace. Hundreds of civilians, including many Americans, plummeted to their deaths in the frigid Sea of Okhotsk. By the end of 1983, all arms-control negotiations with the Soviets were broken off. -
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Military Expenditures Really Support economy
Massive military expenditures, was the real foundation of 1980s prosperity. Reagan cascaded nearly $2 trillion onto the Pentagon, needing to close a “window of vulnerability” with the Soviet Union. Federal budget deficits topped $100 billion in 1982, and the government’s books were about $200 billion out of balance in every following year of the decade -> Massive gov borrowing -> high interest rates -> ^ the value of the dollar. The American international trade deficit was $152 billion in 1987. -
USSR athletes boycotted the Olympic Games in LA
The chill of the Cold War deepened further in 1984, when USSR and Soviet-bloc athletes boycotted the Olympic Games in Los Angeles. -
federal assistance given to save Continental Illinois Bank
In 1984 it took federal assistance to save Continental Illinois Bank from a catastrophic failure. More banks and savings institutions were folding than at any time since the Great Depression of the 1930s. -
Election of 1984
Ronald Reagan, had a buoyant economy at home and good posture abroad, won his bid for a second White House term in 1984. His opponent: Democrat Walter Mondale, w/ vice-presidential running mate Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro of New York (first woman ever to appear on a major-party presidential ticket.) Mondale’s candidacy was tainted by his vice presidency in the Carter administration. Reagan 525 electoral votes to Mondale’s 13. Reagan vs. Mondale in the popular vote—52,609,797 to 36,450,613. -
Gorbachev Announced A cease to deploy intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) targeted at Western Europe
Gorbachev accordingly made warm overtures to the West, including an announcement in April 1985 that the Soviet Union would cease to deploy intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) targeted at Western Europe, pending an agreement on their complete elimination. He pushed this goal when he met with Ronald Reagan at the first of four summit meetings in Geneva in November 1985. -
!st Summit Meeting Geneva in November 1985
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Mikhail Gorbachev's Control over USSR
Last leader of the USSR he assumed control in 1985 and ushered in reforms known as glasnost (aimed at introducing free speech and a measure of political liberty) and perestroika (adopting many of the free-market practices); required that the USSR down size of its military and focus on civilian economy. 4 times, he met prez R to negotiate arms reduction treaties and other measures to thaw the Cold War. In 1991, after surviving a coup against him, he dissolved the USSR and the Communist party. -
2nd Summit Meeting Reykjavik, Iceland
A second summit meeting, in Reykjavik, Iceland, in October 1986, broke down when a furious Reagan stormed out, convinced that Gorbachev had come to end plans for his beloved SDI. -
Reagan Supports Ousting of Philippine Dictator
Reagan's administration provided strong backing in February 1986 for Corazon Aquino’s ouster of dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines. -
lightning air raid against Libya in 1986
Reagan ordered a lightning air raid against Libya in 1986, in retaliation for alleged Libyan sponsorship of terrorist attacks, including a bomb blast in a West Berlin discotheque that killed a U.S. serviceman. -
3rd Washington, D.C
at a third summit, in Washington, D.C., in December 1987, the two leaders at last signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, banning all of these missiles from Europe. -
Black Monday
October 19, 1987. Date of the largest single-day decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average until September 2001. The downturn indicated instability in the booming business culture of the 1980s but did not lead to a serious economic recession. -
End to the Cold War & 4th Summit Meeting; Moscow
Reagan and Gorbachev capped their new friendship in May 1988 at a final summit in Moscow. There Reagan, who had entered office condemning the “evil empire” of Soviet communism, warmly praised Gorbachev. Reagan, the consummate cold warrior, had been flexible and savvy enough to seize a historic opportunity to join with the Soviet chief to bring the Cold War to a kind of conclusion. -
The election of 1988
Democratic nomination went to Michael Dukakis. Republicans nominated Reagan’s vice president, George H. W. Bush, who ran largely on the Reagan record of tax cuts, strong defense policies, toughness on crime, opposition to abortion, and a long-running if hardly robust economic expansion. Dukakis exploited the ethical and economic sore spots and came across as devoid of emotion. The voters gave him just 41,016,429 votes to 47,946,422 for Bush. The Electoral College count was a lopsided 111 to 426. -
china's student's advocation for democracy
In China hundreds of thousands of prodemocracy demonstrators thronged through Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in spring of 1989. They had a thirty-foot-high “Goddess of Democracy,” modeled on the Statue of Liberty, as a symbol of their aspirations. China’s aging and autocratic rulers brutally crushed the prodemocracy movement and killed hundreds of protesters. World opinion condemned the bloody suppression, Prez Bush joined in criticism. Bush insisted on maintaining normal relations with Beijing. -
U.S sent troops to panama to crush dictator/drug lord
United States’ still-intimidating military muscles in tiny Panama in December 1989, when he sent airborne troops to capture dictator and drug lord Manuel Noriega. -
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The collapse of dictatorships in Europe
- The Solidarity movement in Poland led the way when it toppled Poland’s communist government. With dizzying speed, communist regimes collapsed in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and even hyperrepressive Romania. In 1989, the Berlin Wall came down, heralding the imminent end of the forty-five-year-long Cold War. With the approval of the victorious Allied powers of World War II, the two Germanys, divided since 1945, were at last reunited in October 1990.
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Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
Landmark law signed by President George H. W. Bush that prohibited discrimination against people with physical or mental handicaps. It represented a legislative triumph for champions of equal protections to all. -
Operation Desert Storm
U.S.-led multicountry military engagement in January and February of 1991 that drove Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army out of neighboring Kuwait. In addition to presaging the longer and more protracted Iraq War of the 2000s, the 1991 war helped undo what some called the “Vietnam Syndrome,” a feeling of military uncertainty that plagued many Americans. -
The start in decline of military weapon plants in US
in 1991 the Pentagon announced the closing of thirty-four military bases and canceled a $52 billion order for a navy attack plane. More closings and cancellations followed. Communities that had been drenched with Pentagon dollars now nearly dried up. The problems of weaning the U.S. economy from its decades of dependence on defense spending tempered the euphoria of Americans as they welcomed the Cold War’s long-awaited finale. -
major water projects bill
major water projects bill in 1992 that aimed to reform the distribution of subsidized federal water in the arid West. The bill sought to put the interests of the environment on a par with those of agriculture, especially in California’s heavily irrigated Central Valley, and to provide more water to the West’s thirsty cities. -
the START II accord
In 1993 President Bush signed the START II accord with Russian president Boris Yeltsin, committing both powers to reduce their long-range nuclear arsenals by two-thirds within ten years. -
Cater Earned Noble Piece Prize
Carter earned much admiration in later years for his humanitarian and human rights activities. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
