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**The Election of 1988** Vice president George Bush was vice president of Ronald Reagan who was loyal towards him and was with Reagan as vice president for 8 years. In the democratic party there was more then a dozen running candidates who were going against Bush. The group was lead by Michael Dukakis and Jesse Jackson. Dukakis was Massachusetts governor and Jesse Jackson was the first African American to seek a position in presidency. Bush and Dukakis were competing for best coverage on "sound bites" of evening programs. The day of election came with Bush having 53 percent of popular vote and over 426 electoral votes.

**The New President** Since Bush was a veteran that gave him somewhat of an advantage to the election. He served as a pilot in WWII. He had left his home state after the war ended and had a successful oil business he had started in Texas. While Bush was giving his inaugural address he gave out signs that he would not simplify ideas and attitudes of Reagan. Bushes presidency was aimed towards a more peaceful gentle nation. A part of his inaugural address that stood out to me is "We must hope to give them a sense of what it means to be a loyal friend, a loving parent, a citizen who leaves his home, his neighborhood and town better then he found it."

**Drugs, Education, and the Environment** While Bush was president he spoken out about the need to stop the spread of illegal drugs. William Bennett was a "drug czar" to Bush, to oversee the war on drugs. In place of William Bennett, Bob Martinez the former governor of Florida, replaced his position. Bush had also promised a path for the environment and education systems. Money had became a big part of the drug, education, and environment policies. He wanted all nations to set national goals for the local school districts. William Reilly was the head of EPA, he signed into law policies for reducing amounts of air pollution. Nuclear waste was the problem for the environment. For the nuclear plants it would take over $200 billion to clean up and repair. **The Savings and Loan Crisis** Our nation's been in financial crisis for some time now. With savings and bank failures this put more stress onto the nation. The government had encouraged these people to put there money into S&Ls to gain money. Many of these banks that held this opportunity were on the verge of closing due to low interest rates. On the other hand some of the S&ls made huge profits because of junk bonds, high interest, and things along those lines. However; many S&Ls did end up going bankrupt because of tumbling real estate prices and falling energy prices. Bailing our the S&Ls would be a costly gain. Costing over $600 billion in 10 years it would eventually keep rising. The blame was put back on Reagan because he was ignoring the evidence of a financial breakdown. //Money does grow on trees, here's proof.//

**Reducing the Deficit** The deficit of America was growing worse due to the S&L crisis. The way they needed to reduce was to either gain money or cut back on spending. As Bush continued his beliefs of no new taxes the taxes still however grew. The Gramm-Rudman-Hollings was an act that would automatically cut taxes if budgets got low it would automatically go into affect. After this occurred the president hinted that he could possibly give out new taxes. This led to the S&L crisis because taxes were going to rises a tax cut would come in only for investors who sold there stocks. After a short amount of time the president came up with a agreement that would cut deficit to over $500 billion over a 5 year radius. **The Elections of 1990** This new agreement reduced deficit more then any other during the years of Reagan. However; congress was making plans of there own to raise taxes even higher or whipping out programs. Congress saw the president that was unable to direct a solution to the deficit they saw. Instead there was a president who needed billions of dollars to manage these programs. In the running campaign of 1990 voters were angry and they reelected different parties from those that were in office before. **Flags and the Supreme Court** Bush was very angry and upset about the supreme courts decision of striking down the law of burning an American flag a crime. The court ruled it as a part of freedom of speech. The first amendment opposed this decision. Bush still continued to rule against it. Most believed that it was a negative action against the U.S. while others said it is more important to protect freedom then symbols. Not only the flag burning was a big ordeal so was abortion, race, and sex discrimination. __//**SECTION 4**//__ **The End of the Cold War** Due to Soviets having enough power to dominate governments they also dominated the "freedom fighters" of Hungary. In 1989 and 1990 this changed and communist leaders collapsed. In 1989 communist government allowed Solidarity candidates run for Polish parliament. As all of them won a Solidarity leader took the head of the government. It was a start of changes for other nations. **//A wall comes down//** The opening of the Berlin wall symbolized the changes. The wall was built for preventing citizens from fleeing to the west. The wall all together symbolized cold war hostility. When the wall opened many eastern Berliners climbed the wall to visit the west. After negotiating the Soviets and NATO agreed on a timetable. Since Germany was divided for over 45 years it had been so happy to become one nation again. Communist governments were told to resign in Czechoslovakia. Vaclav Havel was the new president who was jailed several times by communist people.Nicolae Ceausescu was a dictator that had the protesters shot. As the demonstrations continued Ceausescu fled his country. The leader of Soviet Union Gorbachev was heading towards democratic reform. His own country however demanded there rights for independence. It were as ending the rise of communism was possible for the Soviet Union. //**The American response**// Since America wanted to stop communism they were happy for the Soviets. Since the cold war seemed to be ending congress had talked about a peace dividend. This was a policy that said since the war is ending we will save money and there will be peace. This would go along with lowering the deficit. Bush's budgets called for a little reduction of the peace dividend. Bush didn't take the actions toward Nicaragua such as Reagan had done. Bush cut off all of the military aid to Contras. The only support was a bipartisan agreement that U.S. could only provide Contras with food, clothing, etc. However there was the elections for Nicaragua, which had lost and there was another failure of communism. //**Invasion of Panama **// Panama had been considered the U.S. as a friend. He too was a part of the support to the Contras. On the other hand he was a drug smuggler. It had became a city of drugs for banking there money and shipping drugs. Even when he got charged drugs continued. Bush sending U.S. military troops into Panama his army fought back but then he surrendered. China had a possibility of becoming communist. Students of China had started democratic reforms. Many people attended the gathering of these students as American troops watched. In 1989 army tanks entered the gathering and killed thousands and many left the country. Bush denied return to repression. He said the U.S. could be influenced by China.
 * //Moving toward democracy //**
 * New directions In Latin America **
 * Unrest in China **