American Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan are both similar and distinctive to the era of their leadership. One major similarity is their battle against communism, but even with a common goal in mind, their individual approaches to a solution vary greatly. The differences between Reagan and Nixon are enormous, but one can easily discern that Reagan's approach to the American economy was much more associated with the “Big Business” agenda than Nixon's. Ultimately, the leadership of Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan shared similar goals of annihilating communism, but differed greatly in terms of U.S. economic policies and practices. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The Great Similarity: An Effort to Destroy the Threat of Global Communism Richard Nixon became president during the tumultuous Vietnam War and ran on a platform that promised to end the war during his presidency, but in reality secretly prolonged the war hoping to destroy the communist threat present in that region of Asia. With permission granted by the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, Nixon secretly bombed Laos and Cambodia because traces of supplies were believed to be entering North Vietnam. Nixon's secrets in turn caused the public to completely distrust the government once its secrets were exposed. This varies greatly from Reagan's approach to communist repression. Ronald Reagan chose less abrasive tactics to help end the threat of communism such as the Reagan Doctrine, which asserted America's right to intervene wherever the Soviet had influence by providing aid to groups working for other communist-influenced governments. When compared, it would appear that the less aggressive approach was actually much more effective than bombing innocent civilians, as Reagan managed to end the Cold War, dissolving the Soviet Union, through peace talks with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev who produced the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Although both presidents shared the goal of eradicating the threat of global communism, their different approaches produced very different results. In terms of economics, Presidents Nixon and Reagan had incredibly different policies and approaches. Ronald Reagan was very supportive of big business and for this reason he decided to cut some programs created during Nixon's time as president such as the EPA and OSHA to allow large companies to produce without too much bureaucracy (The American Journey p. 887 ). Reagan had hoped to stimulate the economy through these practices, but ultimately set it up for failure twenty years later, most notably by deregulating the banking system, which essentially allowed banks to use and invest more money than they received. Reagan's pro-big business stance appears to have been more destructive in the long run. The economy during the Nixon presidential era failed for multiple reasons, but the most important was the fact that the United States government was pouring $3 billion of taxpayer money into the country every month. Vietnam War. The Arab oil embargo also had a large impact on the US economy when OPEC nations refused to sell oil to the US for five months, and resulted in a period of stagflation for America (Module 6 – L 'Economy, Narration). While Nixon didn't contribute much to the American economy, he certainly didn't set up a.