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New York (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
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Shifts in the structure of American society, begun years or even decades earlier, had become apparent by the time the 1980s arrived. The composition of the population and the most important jobs and skills in American society had undergone major changes. For many Americans, the economic, social and political trends of the previous two decades, engendered a mood of disillusionment and strengthened a suspicion of government and its ability to deal effectively with the country's problems. Conservatives, long out of power at the national level, were well positioned to exploit this new mood.
A string of 26 consecutive years of Democratic control was broken in 1980, when the Republicans gained a majority in the Senate. At the same time, Republican Ronald Reagan was elected president. The central theme of his domestic policy was that the federal government had become too big and federal taxes too high. In foreign policy, President Reagan sought a more assertive role for the nation.
A recession marked the early years of Reagan's presidency, but conditions started to improve in 1983 and the United States entered one of the longest periods of sustained economic growth since World War II. However, an alarming percentage of this growth was based on deficit spending.
In 1988, former vice president George Bush became President. He continued many of Reagan's policies. Bush's efforts to gain control over the federal budget deficit, however, were problematic. In foreign affairs, the Bush administration negotiated with the Soviets on arms control as well as the unification of East and West Germany. In August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. The U.N. Security Council passed 12 resolutions condemning the Iraqi invasion and imposing wide-ranging economic sanctions on Iraq. The 12th resolution, issued on November 29, approved the use of force by U.N. member states if Iraq did not withdraw from Kuwait by January 15, 1991. War broke out less than 24 hours after the U.N. deadline. The United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait succeeded in liberating Kuwait. At home, Americans faced some deep and familiar problems as the United States found itself in its deepest recession since the early 1980s.
In 1992, voters elected Bill Clinton, a Democrat, president. In his last State of the Union address in January 2000, President Clinton outlined the progress that had been made in the 1990s:"We begin the new century with over 20 million new jobs; the fastest economic growth in more than 30 years; the lowest unemployment rates in 30 years; the lowest poverty rates in 20 years; the lowest African American and Hispanic unemployment rates on record; the first back-to-back budget surpluses in 42 years. And next month, America will achieve the longest period of economic growth in our entire history."
In 2000, voters elected George W. Bush, a Republican, president. At his inauguration on January 20, 2001, he said: "I am honored and humbled to stand here, where so many of America's leaders have come before me, and so many will follow. We have a place, all of us, in a long story--a story we continue, but whose end we will not see. It is the story of a new world that became a friend and liberator of the old, a story of a slave-holding society that became a servant of freedom, the story of a power that went into the world to protect but not possess, to defend but not to conquer. It is the American story--a story of flawed and fallible people, united across the generations by grand and enduring ideals. The grandest of these ideals is an unfolding American promise that everyone belongs, that everyone deserves a chance, that no insignificant person was ever born. Americans are called to enact this promise in our lives and in our laws. And though our nation has sometimes halted, and sometimes delayed, we must follow no other course. Through much of the last century, America's faith in freedom and democracy was a rock in a raging sea. Now it is a seed upon the wind, taking root in many nations. Our democratic faith is more than the creed of our country, it is the inborn hope of our humanity, an ideal we carry but do not own, a trust we bear and pass along.... "
Abridged from U.S. State Department IIP publications and other U.S. government materials.
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