The Memorable Us Presidents: Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George Bush

Ronald Regan was an American Politician who served as the 40th president of the United States of America from 1981 to 1989. Prior to becoming president, he served as the 33rd governor of California for 10 years. Some of his responsibilities included overseeing the head of state departments, signing bills, and appointing members of boards and commissions. President Regan had been interested in politics since early childhood. In high school, he participated in extra-curriculum activities that allowed him to father his interest such as student body government. He became the student body president and was responsible for reporting issues that were occurring within the school and informing the school administration about new ideas and activities that students would enjoy. After high school, Reagan graduated from Eureka College in 1932 where he majored in Economics and Sociology. Not to mention, he later received the same opportunity to serve as the study body president and he led a student revolt against the dean after he tried to make financial cuts from the employees. In 1932, he began working as a sports news announcer on several local radio stations. He later became an actor and starred in a few major productions during his career. Furthermore, Reagan was elected twice as the president of the Screen Actors Guild, a labor union which represented over 100,000 film and television background performers worldwide. During his time with Screen Actors Guild, he focused on eliminating communist influence. In 1964, Reagan delivered a speech for Republican Presidential Candidate Barry Goldwater, a projecting conservative. Two years later, in his first race for office, Reagan defeated Democratic Edmund brown by almost one million votes! Then in 1970 Reagan was reelected to a second term.

In 1979, Regan announced his candidacy for the President of the United States. He was a nominee of the Republican Party during the 1980 presidential election which is surprising considering he was a Democrat up until 1962. Yet, after he received the Republican nomination, he decided to select George H.W Bush to be his running partner. Then in 1980 Reagan had sworn into office with 49 electoral votes and 50.7% of the popular votes. Upon the domestic policies, President Ronald Reagan implemented policies that reduced the federal government's access to funds of Americans, which included tax cuts. He established two major tax cuts, the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 and the Tax Reform Act of 1986. Both tax cuts encouraged economic growth, reduced profit taxes, and helped all working taxpayers to establish Individual Retirement accounts (IRA’s). He was also an advocate for increases in military spending. Since Regan was enlisted in the Army Reserves and was commissioned to serve as a second lieutenant in the office in 1937. He believed that the United States needed to strengthen its military in case of an emergency. The Regan Administration opposed a budget plan of $247 billion dollars in expenses in 1984. He opposed that many senators and representatives, including republicans had been serious about Regan’s Military spending budget plan. However, they repeatedly voted for the funds. The federal economic policies of the Reagan administration, elected in 1981. These policies combined a monetarist fiscal policy, supply-side tax cuts, and domestic budget cutting. Their goal was to reduce the size of the federal government and stimulate economic growth. The foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration was the foreign policy of the United States from 1981 to 1989. The main goal was winning the Cold War and the rollback of Communism—which was achieved in Eastern Europe in 1989 and in the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. President Regan wanted to proclaim American power in the world and wished to authorize the largest military buildup in US history.

During Regan’s presidency, he was able to accomplish a lot. To begin with, Regan was re-elected as President with the largest electoral college victory in U.S History. He received the highest number of electoral votes ever won by a non-incumbent presidential candidate. His victory became the largest electoral college victory in American History. He was also the first president since Dwight D Eisenhower to serve two full terms as President. In addition, Regan implemented a strategy known as the “Reagan Doctrine”. This doctrine provided support to anti-communist forces which resulted in the end of the Cold War. Not to mention, he created the Mutual assured destruction (MAD), which is a military strategy and security policy that stated if a side is attacked by nuclear weapons, it will strike back with full force leading to the growth of the war. It was applied during the Cold war by both sides to prevent direct conflict. His purpose was to protect the United States from being attacked by nuclear missiles. The Regan Doctrine also paved the way for some ballistic missile systems of today and gave the U.S advantage in the field of missile defense. Before the Reagan Administration, the U.S economy experienced a decade of stagflation, a situation in which the inflation rate is high, the economic growth rate slows, and unemployment remains steadily high. Ronald Reagan's economic policy, Reaganomics which focused on reducing government regulation, lower tax rates, and tightening the money supply. This economic policy resulted in a considerable decrease in unemployment and inflation. The economic reforms of Ronald Reagan resulted in one of the largest peacetime economic booms in American history. Reagan also simplified the tax code by reducing the number of tax brackets to four and slashing a number of tax breaks. This was done through his famous Tax Reform Act of 1986.

Another memorable President was Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton was an American politician who served as the 42nd president. Like Reagan and Bush, Clinton was also the governor of his hometown, Arkansas. As the governor, he became responsible for overseeing the states’ educational system. In addition, he also served as chairman of the National Governors Association. He decided that he wanted to be an elected official at the tender age or 16. He began to get involved in the activities surrounding Law and Government in his high school. He became a leader in a mock trial class and told the teacher “this class made him realize that someday he would study law.” So, after high school, he went on to attend Georgetown University with the aid of many scholarships and received a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service. Then in 1964, he was elected as the class president. Due to these opportunities, he was able to serve in many leadership roles including serving as an intern and then a clerk in the office of Arkansas. After graduating from Georgetown in 1968, Clinton transferred to University College Oxford where he received a degree in Politics. Following that, he attended Yale Law School and earned a Juris Doctor degree in 1973. After only being at Yale for a month he was given the opportunity to coordinate the George McGovern campaign for the United States presidential election. He eventually became more invested into politics considering her spent a lot of time working on the campaign. Once he had graduated from Yale, he decided to become a law professional at the University of Arkansas. Then, in 1974 Clinton ran for House of Representatives against Republican John Hammerschmidt. Clinton lost the election race to John who received 77 percent of the votes. However, Clinton was elected Governor of Arkansas in 1978 being the youngest candidate in the state’s history. He put his efforts toward educational reforms and urban health care. He enforced policies that ensured that the government spent more money for schools and better opportunities for advanced students. He also proposed ideas that increased the salary of teachers and more course variety curriculum. During Clinton’s term, he was able to transform Arkansas's economy drastically and improve the state’s educational system in a positive direction. The Nation experienced a continuation of economic peace and prosperity. He was also passionate about caring for senior citizens. He implemented a policy that removed sales taxes from medication costs and increased the home property tax exemption. Also, in the 1980s, The Clintons' personal and business affairs included transactions that became the basis of the Whitewater controversy investigation, which later dogged his presidential administration. After extensive investigation over several years, no indictments were made against the Clintons related to the years in Arkansas.

According to some sources, Clinton was a death penalty challenger in his early years. During Clinton's term, Arkansas performed its first executions since 1964 (the death penalty had been reinstated in 1976). As president, he also oversaw four executions: one by electric chair and three by lethal injection. Later, Clinton was the first president to pardon a death-row inmate since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988. The foreign policy of the Bill Clinton administration was the policy of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Clinton's main foreign policy advisors were Secretaries of State Warren M. Christopher and Madeleine Albright and National Security Advisors Anthony Lake and Sandy Berger. He also had some involvement in World War 2. Clinton assumed office shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, which had left the United States as the world's only remaining superpower. As such and soon after taking office, President Clinton had to decide whether and how the United States would deal with the violence of several conflicts internationally. These would include the employment of military force in several regions primarily for the purposes of protecting civilians.

Georgia Bush was an American Politician who served as the 41st president of the United States of America from 1989 to 1993. Prior to becoming president, he served as the 36th governor of Connecticut for 8 years. He was responsible for overseeing the head of state departments, signing bills, and appointing members of boards and commissions. President Regan had been active in politics and interested in extra-curriculum activities that surround American Government. In high school, he participated in extra-curriculum activities that allowed him to father his interest such as student body government. He became the student body president and was responsible for being the voice of the students. After high school, Reagan graduated from Harvard University in 1961 where he majored in Economics. Bush's career in politics began on F1963 when he was elected chairman of the Harris County, Texas Republican Party. He was a young Conservative Republican compared to his opponent Yarborough. Having earned money of his own, Bush became active in Republican Party politics. By 1964, he was a re-elected chairman of the Republican Party of Harris County. That same year, he ran for the U.S. Senate but was defeated in the Democratic landslide that returned Lyndon Johnson to the White House. The next year, he ran against Democrat Ralph W. Yarborough in the U.S. Senate race. He advocated and campaigned against civil rights legislation, believing it gave too much power to the federal government. However, Bush lost the election 56% to 44%, though he did outpoll Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, who also lost by an overwhelming amount. Bush played a role in the development of the new Republican Party. Bush entered the office in 1989, succeeding Ronald Reagan. He entered office at a period of change in the world, the fall of the Berlin Wall had just occurred, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Also, as a result, Democrats in the South who were committed to segregation left their party. Early in his term, Bush faced the problem of an enormous number of remaining deficits because of the Reagan years. At least $220 billion in 1990, and it only tripled since then. Bush was dedicated to fixing the deficit, believing that America could not continue to be a leader in the world without doing so as a part of his Domestic Policy. He began an effort to persuade the Democratic-controlled Congress to act on a budget with Republicans believing that the best way was to cut government spending, and Democrats disagreed because they argued that the only way would be to raise taxes. After Bush's tax cuts and the No Child Left Behind Act, Bush turned his domestic focus to healthcare. He wanted to expand Medicare so it would also cover the cost of prescription drugs. Many Democrats opposed the bill because it did not allow Medicare to exchange the prices of drugs, while many conservative Republicans opposed the expansion of the government's involvement in healthcare. Bush overcame strong resistance but won passage of his Medicare bill. In 2003, Bush signed the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act, the largest expansion of Medicare since the program's creation in 1965.

Eventually, Bush faced problems when it came to comprising with new ideas and proposals. In 1989, Bush submitted to Congress the Educational Excellence Act of 1989, a seven-program education legislative proposal with the intent of achieving a better-educated America. This proposal was opposed by Republicans looking to shrink the government's role in education. However, just a week after submitting the proposal, Bush said his administration was planning to provide agreements on ' regulations for poorer communities that would grant federal funding when schools showed high levels of responsibility coupled with academic performance. Later in the year, Bush held a summit with American governors dedicated especially to education reform at the University of Virginia, the group forming an agreement to fix the American education system for the nation's students. Hoping to improve the test scores in science, mathematics, and literacy.

According to all the evidence that has been given, it is safe that the most memorable president has to be Bill Clinton. President Clinton advocated for everyone, especially students’ education. He was committed to his passion and used his presidential power to make a positive influence and give back to the community and to the world. He was also the president that created opportunities to participate in international trade and mutual relationships with others. He ensured that organizations such as NATO sustained. Clinton would apply both the multi-national cast and the existence of international organizations for support in most of these interests. These largely considerate operations during his term met much more opposition. This involvement suggests that the president had found international organizations to be a useful part to decrease and overcoming the challenge of the national government. His supporters fought that under his presidency the US enjoyed the lowest unemployment and inflation rates in recent history, high home ownership, low crime rates, and an increased budget surplus. They give him credit for disregarding the federal deficit and reforming welfare, despite being forced to deal with a Republican-controlled Congress. He was able to take responsibility and take on the role of rebuilding up the country after the nation was left with a large amount of deficit. He had to make important decisions that steered the country in the right direction so that the United States could continue to prosper financially.

In Conclusion, the United States has had many amazing presidents thus far. They have implemented many great opportunities that take in consideration of Americans. In addition, they all have worked hard since they were young to become successful. By giving back to the community and making decisions as global leaders of the nations. The best and youngest president, Bill Clinton has made one of the biggest impacts in the U.S Presidency! He is a president that will always be remembered due to his efforts in regard to the educational opportunities that are available to students.

Works Cited

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2. 'Morning in America: The Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush Administrations.' The Growth of a Superpower: American from 1945 to Today, edited by Jeff Wallenfeldt, Britannica Educational Publishing with Rosen Educational Services, 2013, p. [53]. Documenting America: The Primary Source Documents of a Nation. Gale Virtual Reference Library, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CX3715900037/GVRL?u=atla79673&sid=GVRL&xid=759dcf77. Accessed 28 Mar. 2019.
3. “Presidents.” The White House, The United States Government, www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/.
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5. “U.S. President.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 17 Jan. 2017, www.biography.com/people/groups/political-leaders-us-presidents.