How Did Ronald Reagan Affect The Economy

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On February 6, 1911, Ronald Wilson Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois to Jack and Nelle Reagan. He grew up in the city of Dixon, Illinois, and graduated from Dixon High School. In high school, he was student body president, a member of the drama club, a football and basketball player, and was a member of the yearbook staff. As a teenager Reagan worked as a lifeguard in Lowell Park at Rock River and saved seventy-seven lives over the course of six summers. After high school, Reagan went to Eureka College and majored in economics. Once he graduated college, Ronald worked at WOC as a radio sportscaster making $10 a game in Davenport, Iowa. He was quite talented at radio announcing and soon made his way up to WHO in Des Moines, Iowa, earning …show more content…

The main idea was to cut taxes to expand the tax base over a period of time. The increase in money to come was supposed to offset the initial decrease in taxes. This worked the first time Reagan attempted it because taxes were high already, but the later tax cuts didn’t work as well because taxes were at a good state to begin with. Reagan also raised taxes in other places like Social Security salary taxes. He conducted several actions that defeated inflation, like restricting the monopoly on gas, television, long-distance phone calls, and oil. However, Reagan did not decrease health, safety, or environmental regulations at the same rate as the other items that helped defeat inflation. Despite his great successes in decreasing taxes, Reagan was not successful in minifying government spending, and in fact, he actually increased it during the ending of the Cold War. The defense budget was apprized 35 percent when he spoke his illustrious line “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” (which Gorbachev did, two years later). Additionally, the overall government spending gained 2.5 percent each year that he was …show more content…

Americans were positive about their monetary future, at first. Then unemployment rose to over 10 percent, Reagan had failed in improving the economy, and the American people weren’t so happy anymore. This unhappiness continued to occur during Reagan’s presidency, and at one point, only 35 percent of Americans thought he was doing a good job of running the country. Eventually, unemployment rates hovered around 7 percent, making Americans hopeful for the future. Once it was presidential reelection time, the American people said that they did want him for another term, as the economy had gotten much better

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