Mourning the Passing of President Ronald Reagan

MOURNING THE PASSING OF PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN -- (House of Representatives - June 08, 2004)

Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the order of the House of today and as designee of the majority leader, I call up the resolution (H. Res. 664) mourning the passing of President Ronald Reagan and celebrating his service to the people of the United States and his leadership in promoting the cause of freedom for all the people of the world, and ask for its immediate consideration.

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Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis), distinguished member of the Committee on Government Reform, to offer his presentation on this resolution.

Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the ranking member of the Committee on Government Reform for yielding me the time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join with my colleagues as we pay tribute to the life and legacy of President Reagan. A bigger-than-life screen actor and television personality, Ronald Reagan moved from being Governor of California in the 1960s to President of the United States and dominating American politics in the 1980s. He was the first President to be reelected to a second term since Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Media-made and media-presented, President Reagan got millions of Americans to feel proud of their Nation. America's 40-year Cold War with the Soviet Union cooled considerably and perhaps actually ended during Reagan's Presidency. Many Americans credit him with having achieved that significant outcome.

Born the son of a shoe salesman in small-town Illinois, President Reagan's impoverished but loving parents instilled in him a sense of optimism that carried him through college as an average student. After graduation, he worked for a few years as a sports broadcaster in Midwestern radio before landing a film contract with Warner Brothers, which took him to Hollywood in 1936.

Over the next 30 years, President Reagan made scores of films, including Army films produced during World War II. He hosted two popular television series and was actively engaged in politics as president of the Screen Actors Guild.
In the 1950s, President Reagan changed from being a Roosevelt New Deal Democrat to a conservative Republican. In 1966, he became Governor of California and was reelected in 1970. Using his popularity in California, he unsuccessfully challenged President Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination in 1976. He tried again and won the nomination in 1980 and thereafter defeated the incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter. With his 1984 reelection victory, President Reagan became the most politically successful Republican President since President Eisenhower.

In the last 7 years, as President Reagan battled Alzheimer's disease, our Nation went from having zero drugs for this devastating disease to today having five new prescriptive drugs to help manage and treat the progression of Alzheimer's. Today it is even possible to diagnose Alzheimer's with more than 90 percent accuracy. It is clear that Alzheimer's does not discriminate on whom it affects, regardless of gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, political ideology or if one worked the fields, in the factories or in the Oval Office.

With now more than 4.5 million people suffering from this disease, the upsetting effects of Alzheimer's is growing faster than modern medicine can manage. This is only likely to become more complicated with the aging of the baby boomers, boosting the number of Alzheimer's patients to an astounding 11 to 16 million people by the middle of the century.
As a way to honor President Reagan, let us make the greatest commitment that we can to real investment in research for Alzheimer's disease and follow through with clinical trials to translate the research into treatments. We must now act to make the lives of all Alzheimer's patients more comfortable with a better quality of life, while hopefully being able to prevent this disease in the future.

Mr. President, as one might say in a western movie, you had a good ride and our country is proud to say, "Much obliged."