Reagan Remembered Interview - Research Paper Example

Reagan Remembered The 1980s era when Ronald Reagan was president marked a number of turning points in American history. As the first actor to be elected to the presidency, there were quite a number of people who questioned his leadership abilities and thought that he would run the country into the ground. Although his was not the perfect presidency, it still had its high points. In fact the people who lived within his presidential terms of office have both good and bad memories to recall from that time.

To begin with, his belief on the supply-side of economics that came to be known as Reaganomics actually worked for the benefit of the country. America had its longest peacetime economic expansion under Reagan and the tax benefits actually had a trickle effect that the people felt. There were job increases and unemployment was down. Even with a brief recession in 1982, the country still managed to come out on top economically speaking. It is really sad that Ronald Reagan knew of the importance of privatizing the Social Security program of the country but he never had a chance to do so.

He actually liked the idea of allowing the members to choose how and where their money would be invested. He was a president who knew that social security, even though he was against it due to its Ponzi scheme like nature, could benefit the poorest of the poor. That is why he wanted to allow those who could prove that they did not need the retirement benefits of social security to get a refund and opt out of the program. For all of the good that Reagan did for our country though, his presidency seems to be best remembered for the Iran Contra scandal wherein our high ranking government officials illegally sold firearms to Iran which, at the time, was the subject of an arms embargo.

Regardless of the embargo though, it is easy to understand why he did it. There were seven American lives at stake. These were American citizens being held hostage in Iran by a terrorist group with ties to the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution. What started out as a deal based on you scratch my back and Ill scratch yours ended up as an arms for hostages scheme instead that had individual executive branch representatives selling the weapons in exchange for American lives. He may not have done right by going around the arms embargo but, and this is the most important part, he brought those Americans being held hostage home.

Each one of them alive and kicking. Nobody will ever forget the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagans life because a mad man tried to kill him in order to gain the attention of Jodie Foster, the actress. In a shooting that could have left him dead, doctors moved fast in order to beat the clock and repair the damage to his lung and stop his heavy bleeding. It was a nightmare for those who had already lived through the assassination of Pres. Kennedy. There had not been a second successful assassination attempt on a president since and everyone prayed this would not be it.

And survive it he did, making him the only U.S. president in history to have survived an assassination attempt.