The 80 s The 90 s.. And beyond..

The 80 s The 90 s.. And beyond..

The growing conservative movement swept Ronald Reagan into the White House in 1980 Who promised to: Lower taxes Reduce the size of government And INCREASE defense spending. Reagan s election was called the Reagan Revolution by conservatives Who had not held the White House since 1928 With the administration of Herbert Hoover. Ronald Reagan

Reaganomics Refers to Ronald Reagan s economic plan. It called for: 1. A reduction of government spending 2. Massive tax cuts 3. A reduction of government regulation Reagan did cut taxes But was not able to keep spending under control And the national debt rose from $700 billion to $3 trillion. Reagan called this his greatest disappointment.

The Iran-Contra Scandal In 1987, it was revealed that the US had been illegally selling weapons to Iran And using the profits to fund the anti-communist side of a Nicaraguan civil war. Reagan first denied that this had happened And then admitted it had But blamed Col. Oliver North for making the deals without any authorization. His administration then quickly destroyed most of the documents relating to the scandal... So the truth is still a mystery.

The Collapse of the USSR When Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, began to allow more personal and economic freedom in the USSR The old-guard hard-line communists were FURIOUS And, In 1991, attempted to overthrow Gorbachev The coup failed, and a pro-democracy, pro-us ally, Boris Yeltsin seized power. The Soviet Union was soon disbanded and the democratic Russian Federation was established.

George H.W. Bush Had been Ronald Reagan s Vice President for eight years And was elected by promising four more years of similar policies His presidency was undermined by a broken promise not to raise taxes (Read My Lips: No New Taxes) And by the poor performance of his vice presidential choice, Dan Quayle.

The First Gulf War On August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded its southern neighbor, oil-rich Kuwait And quickly overran the weak defenses of the tiny country. After the fall of Kuwait, Saddam s armies pivoted to the west, and threatened to invade Saudi Arabia. Had Saddam taken control of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, he would have essentially taken control of the world s oil market And the US was determined to prevent that from happening.

Operation Desert Storm By fall of 1990, a multi-national force of 700,000 had assembled in Saudi Arabia To defend the Saudis; and to prepare to oust Saddam from Kuwait. The American-led attack came in January of 1991 And rapidly overwhelmed the Iraqis, who surrendered or fled The Iraqis lost 25,000 soldiers; the US 148 The Iraqi army was driven from Kuwait, but Bush decided not to invade Iraq and attempt to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

Bill Clinton Bush s success in the Gulf War led to tremendous popularity But he LOST the election of 1992 because the nation had entered an economic recession And Bill Clinton became the first Democrat in the White House since 1976. And the third-youngest after T. Roosevelt and JFK. Clinton governed as a centrist Often finding common ground with Republican opponents.

Issues of the Clinton Presidency: NAFTA One of the centerpieces of Clinton s economic plan was NAFTA the North American Free Trade Agreement Which either cancelled or greatly reduced TARIFFS Between the US, Mexico & Canada In an attempt to create an economic United States of North America. NAFTA caused a tremendous loss of manufacturing jobs in the US As American companies began moving operations to Mexico But the US has had huge growth in the industries of service and technology. And the LEVEL OF EDUCATION Americans must now have to survive in the middle class Has INCREASED TREMENDOUSLY. Americans who have low levels of education tend to live lives of MISERY AND PAIN.

Impeachment Early in his campaign, a former employee named Paula Jones accused Clinton of sexual harassment In sworn testimony for the case, Clinton denied having had an affair with another woman Monica Lewinsky When indisputable evidence of the affair came to light, Clinton was impeached on the charge of perjury But was not CONVICTED by the Senate and, thus, not removed from office.

The Election of 2000 Was between former Vice President Al Gore And the governor of Texas, George W. Bush. Although Gore won the popular vote Bush won the election with 271 electoral votes to Gore s 266. The results in Florida were highly disputed But the conservative-republican Supreme Court refused to allow a recount of the votes Which may have shown Gore had been the winner.

The Bush Administration Was one of the most controversial in modern memory In October of 2001, in response to the attacks of 9-11 In which Saudi terrorists flew passenger airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon Bush announced the global war on terror And ordered the invasion of Afghanistan To overthrow the government a fundamentalist Islamist movement called the Taliban Who, it is believed, had provided aid and shelter to Osama bin Laden (a Saudi terrorist). The Taliban s government was quickly overthrown But continued to fight the American occupation Large parts of the country are still under their control And Americans are still fighting and dying there.

The Iraq Invasion After the success in Afghanistan, Bush began to speak of disarming Saddam Hussein Who was thought to be developing weapons of mass destruction And when Saddam failed to meet US demands that he turn over his weapons and leave the country Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq. Like the Taliban in Afghanistan, Saddam s government crumbled after a few weeks of fighting But the US was then obligated to STAY, and to help rebuild Iraq and its government. During the occupation, approximately 4600 Americans have been killed Estimates of Iraqi deaths range from 40,000 to more than 1 million. And no WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION WERE EVER FOUND.