Description

Includes the State of the Union Addresses (1982 -88) of President Ronald Reagan as well as the Constitution of the United States of America and the U. S. Bill of Rights. Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States (1981-1989) and the 33rd Governor of California (1967-1975). As president, Reagan implemented new political and economic initiatives. His supply-side economic policies, dubbed "Reaganomics", were aimed at controlling inflation and spurring economic growth through tax cuts, reduced business regulation, and reduced growth in government spending. In his first term he survived an assassination attempt, took a hard line against labor unions, and ordered military actions in Grenada. He was reelected in a landslide in 1984, proclaiming it was "Morning in America". His second term was primarily marked by foreign matters, such as the ending of the Cold War, the bombing of Libya, and the revelation of the Iran-Contra affair. Reagan supported anti-Communist movements worldwide and spent his first term forgoing the strategy of détente by ordering a massive military buildup in an arms race with the USSR. Reagan negotiated with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, culminating in the INF Treaty and the decrease of both countries' nuclear arsenals. Reagan left office in 1989. In 1994, the former president disclosed that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease earlier in the year; he died ten years later at the age of 93. He has been rated highly by scholars in rankings of U.S. Presidents.