Although Reagan did run in 1968, he lost the republican nomination. He ran again and failed to receive the republican nomination in 1976. Finally, the eighties would be his chance. On January 21, 1981, Reagan was sworn in as president. He was a large fan of supply-side economics, and was interested in the possibilities of “less government, less regulation, slashing personal and corporate tax rates, encouraging entrepreneurship and the acquisition of wealth…” (105).
Reagan still wasn’t quite what his aides and staff would have liked him to be. Some even felt sorry for him when he couldn’t fill up the time allotted to him in the 1980 presidential debates. Still, though, he appeared down to earth and genuinely interested in helping America. This helped him to overcome some of the troubles he had early on with not seeming open enough or prepared enough to have the standard long, rambling answers to political questions (109).
In February of 1981, Reagan announced a plan to balance the budget in three years, and produce a surplus after that (131). It proved to be terribly inaccurate but that was what the American public wanted to hear at the time. They believed in the balanced budget proposal—and they believed in Ronald Reagan, actor turned politician, turned economical savior of America.
During Reagan’s term he even changed some television programming. Shows like “60 Minutes” became very popular, and started a huge flood of news shows. Economics was behind most of this. People wanted to see what was going on economically with the country, and the news shows provided that (143). Americans were becoming more and more obsessed with acquiring wealth, having success as individuals, and having a happy ending.
Not all was happy endings for Reagan, however. During his presidency he would have to deal with a recession, Manuel Noriega, and the Iran-Contra scandal. The Iran-Contra scandal forced Reagan to admit that he did not always know what was going on behind the scenes like he should have, and that he let the American people down. In 1988, he lost to George Bush (407).
When Reagan turned over the presidency to Bush, he left Bush in a best-and-worst kind of scenario. While the country was economically sound and there was no immediate crisis anywhere that Bush would have to deal with, some national bills were coming due and the savings-and-loan crisis required some quick thinking and drastic decisions (440).
Reagan had come to power with all of America’s hopes and dreams behind him, and had left with a lot of what he wanted to do unresolved. There was no balancing of the budget, and Americans did not amass great wealth. Recession hit in 1982, and many plants and factories had to close down for a while until the country could get back on its feet again.
One of the main arguments that Haynes makes is that Reagan did not really know what he was getting into by running for president, nor did he know what he was doing when he got there. In this, Haynes may be correct. While it is true that a lot of good things happened during Reagan’s time in office, it is equally true that a lot of bad things happened as well, and Reagan did make some bad decisions.
He showed terribly poor judgment in dealing with the Iran-Contra scandal, and did not fair a lot better in dealing with the economy. In the end, though, he left the presidency with the country being relatively stable, and not really any worse for wear than it was when he was elected. Only the passage of time will truly tell what kind of president he was. There were many to compare him too, but there will be many more in the future. A lot of what future presidents do will help people judge what Reagan did. Haynes makes a good argument for Reagan not really knowing what he was doing, but his judgments may be a little hasty. What Haynes does not address is what may be President Ronald Reagan’s greatest attribute. Reagan is arguably the single-most popular president in modern United States history. He had a way of connecting with the American public that led to his rise to a societal icon. It has been said that Reagan almost single-handedly ended the cold war. All of this, coupled with the “down-home” Americanization that Reagan brought to the office of President leads me to believe that the Reagan era will prove to be one of the bright spots in the United States’ history. The eighties have not been gone for very long yet, and it still remains to be seen how the legacy of Reagan will hold up in the face of all of the presidents and political leaders yet to come.
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