To me, this is worth reading:
Government is not the solution to our problem,
government is the problem.”
When leaving office in 1988, President Reagan viewed with satisfaction the effects of what his supporters had dubbed the “Reagan Revolution”. In his Farewell Address to the Nation, he proclaimed, “We’ve done our part. And as I walk into the city streets, a final word to the men and women of the Reagan Revolution, the men and women across America who for eight years did the work that brought America back. My friends: We did it. We weren’t just marking time. We made a difference. We made a city stronger. We made a city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all.”
The Reagan Revolution involved cutting back the size of the federal government and getting it out of the lives of Americans. Reagan came in to office with three core principles and an agenda by which to implement them. He believed that the government was too big, that it taxed too much, and that the Soviet Union was an evil empire, getting away with atrocities across the world. From the first day of his Presidency, Reagan began to move systematically towards enacting his campaign promises, and, in so doing, he rejuvenated the American spirit.
Reagan was born on February 6, 1911 in a small apartment above a bank in Tampico, Illinois to John (Jack) and Nelle Reagan. The Reagans finally settled in Dixon, where young Ron came to be known for his exploits as a lifeguard. Reagan spent summers lifeguarding at the Rock River, where in the course of six years, he pulled 77 struggling swimmers out of the water. Reagan attended Eureka College, where he majored in Economics and Sociology. While there, he won four varsity sweaters in football, and managed the lead in most school plays. As a freshman, Reagan led the Eureka student body on a strike when a number of professors were fired. It was not long before the school hired back the professors in question.
After graduating, Reagan went back to Dixon and applied for a job as manager of the sports department at a Montgomery Ward that had just opened in town. Reagan, because of his success in sports in high school and college, thought he had the job wrapped up, but was turned down. In the middle of the depression, he began traveling across the Midwest looking for a job in radio. Reagan was able to convince a radio station, which had turned down more qualified applicants, to hire him. It was not long before “Dutch” Reagan could be heard broadcasting Big Ten football games. But his dream was to be an actor, and in 1937 a screen test lead him off to Hollywood. Over the next two decades he would appear in 53 films; in only one did he play a villain.
Several years later, Reagan became President of the Screen Actors Guild and found himself in the middle of the attempted communist takeover of the movie industry. He testified before Congress as a friendly witness, where he gave a powerful defense of the strength of democracy. Slowly, his political views began to shift from liberal to conservative. He was later hired as a spokesman for General Electric, and, in touring the country on their behalf, he was able to interact with many Americans, leading to his growing sense that the government was hindering the lives of Americans. In 1964 he gave a speech for Republican Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater and he burst onto the political scene as a prominent leader in the conservative movement. In 1966, he defeated incumbent Governor Pat Brown by nearly a million votes. In 1970 he won re-election.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan became the Republican nominee for President and chose Texas Congressman George Bush as his running mate. In a time when conventional politicians were cynical and many thought that America’s best days were of the past, Reagan radiated optimism while speaking of an America whose best days were still ahead. Americans were ready for a change. With the economy out of control—inflation, interest rates, and unemployment all soaring, an American hostage crisis in Iran, and the Soviet Union on the march, Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter resoundingly, winning 489 electoral votes to Carter’s 49.
On January 20, 1981, Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as the 40th President of the United States. In his first 100 days as President, Reagan met with a total of 467 legislators as he prepared to send his Economic Recovery Act to Congress. This was interrupted however, when on March 30, Reagan was shot outside the Washington Hilton Hotel. Reagan was rushed to George Washington Hospital, a bullet within an inch of his heart. Reagan showed grace and a quick wit in the face of death, even telling a joke or two within hours of the shooting. When wife Nancy asked what had happened, he simply said, “Honey, I forgot to duck.”
But it was not long after being shot that Reagan was back to work on his Economic Recovery Act. With the help of the American people who he addressed by means of national television, Reagan’s proposal passed by a large margin. Remarkably, Reagan had convinced forty Democrats in the House to break ranks.
By 1984, as a Reagan campaign ad declared, it was “morning again in America.” His tax cuts, true to Reagan’s belief, had stimulated the economy and his defense buildup was beginning to take a large toll on the Soviets. In that election year, the Reagan-Bush team defeated Democrat challengers Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro by one of the largest margins in U.S. history, losing only Mondale’s home of Minnesota and D.C.
It was during his second term that Reagan’s policies towards the Soviet Empire began to evidence the results that Reagan had predicted years earlier. The political elite laughed when Reagan referred to the Soviets as an “evil empire” and gasped when Reagan called for a nuclear arms buildup that would allow the U.S. to negotiate from a position of strength—but in the same year that Reagan left office, the Berlin Wall was on its way down, and shortly thereafter the Soviet Union itself would collapse.
Upon leaving office in 1989, Reagan said that he would remain active on what he called “the mashed potato circuit” and, hopefully, spend some much longed for time at his beloved California ranch. Sadly these activities were cut short, when, in 1994, in an emotional letter to the American people, Reagan announced that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. With characteristic optimism, Reagan chose not to focus on his own hardship, but instead on his great love and hope for his country:
“In closing, let me thank you, the American people, for giving me the great honor of allowing me to serve as your president. When the Lord calls me home, whenever that day may be, I will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future. I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead.”
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