Social

• War on Drugs
• Reagan increased punishments and penalties for drug charges
• Reagan's wife launched the "Just Say No" campaign to influence people not to do drugs
• AIDS
• Spread quickly
• A lot of effort was put forth for the research for a cure
• this brought attention to gay rights and drug abusers
• Civil Rights
• African Americans were able to vote and to be a part of political positions thanks to Reagan
• Reagan was against abortion; federal ban
• Leagalized school prayer
• Women were able to work more jobs than before
• Equal rights amendment was defeated
• Wealth Gap
• Gap grew exponentially
• Wages remained stagant
• Top 5th of America's income increased 23%
• Bottom 5th American's income increased 9%

Political

• Conservative Shift
• motivated by the fear of excessive federal spending/power
• emphasized opposition to abortion, Equal Rights Amendment, homosexuals and pornography
• Cold War
• increased military spending
• SDI (Strategic Defense Inattentive): a space-based nuclear defense system that increased nuclear weapons
• Iran-Contra Affair
• US sold arms to Iran
• Iran under arms embargo
• US gives arms to Contra to free 6 hostages

Economic

Reaganomics: Ronald Reagan's policies that go along with the Supply-Side economic theory. The trickle down theory comes from this. This is when 10% of the rich people get a tax break. They use the tax break to invest into other companies. The lower and middle classes are then able to find jobs and begin working.