Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
's tenure as the
42nd president of the United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...
began with
his first inauguration on January 20, 1993, and ended on January 20, 2001. Clinton, a
Democrat
Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to:
Politics
*A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people.
*A member of a Democratic Party:
**Democratic Party (United States) (D)
**Democratic ...
from Arkansas, took office following a decisive election victory over
Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
incumbent president
George H. W. Bush and
independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
businessman
Ross Perot in
1992. Four years later, in
1996, he defeated Perot again (then as the nominee of the
Reform Party) and Republican nominee
Bob Dole, to win re-election; in neither ballot did he obtain a majority of the popular vote. Clinton was succeeded by Republican
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
, who won the
2000 presidential election.
The nation experienced an extended
period of economic prosperity during the Clinton presidency. While the economy remained strong, his presidency oscillated dramatically from high to low and back again, which historian
Gil Troy characterized in six Acts. Act I in early 1993 was "Bush League" with amateurish distractions. By mid-1993 Clinton had recovered to Act II, passing a balanced budget and the NAFTA trade deal. Act III, 1994, saw the Republicans mobilizing under Newt Gingrich, defeating his healthcare reforms, and taking control of the House of Representatives for the first time in forty years. 1995 to 1997 saw the comeback in Act IV, with a triumphant reelection landslide. However, Act V, the Lewinsky scandal and impeachment made 1998 a lost year. Clinton concluded happily with Act VI by deregulating the banking system in 1999.
Months into his first term, he signed the
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993
The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 (or OBRA-93) was a federal law that was enacted by the 103rd United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on August 10, 1993. It has also been unofficially referred to as the Def ...
, which raised taxes and set the stage for future budget surpluses. He signed the bipartisan
Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act
The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, commonly referred to as the 1994 Crime Bill, the Clinton Crime Bill, or the Biden Crime Law, is an Act of Congress dealing with crime and law enforcement; it became law in 1994. It is t ...
and won ratification of the
North American Free Trade Agreement, despite opposition from trade unions and environmentalists. Clinton's most ambitious legislative initiative, a
plan
A plan is typically any diagram or list of steps with details of timing and resources, used to achieve an objective to do something. It is commonly understood as a temporal set of intended actions through which one expects to achieve a goal.
...
to provide
universal health care
Universal health care (also called universal health coverage, universal coverage, or universal care) is a health care system in which all residents of a particular country or region are assured access to health care. It is generally organized ar ...
, faltered—it never had majority support in Congress. In the
1994 elections
The following elections occurred in the year 1994.
Africa
* 1994 Botswana general election
* 1994 Guinea-Bissau general election
* 1994 Malawian general election
* 1994 Mozambican general election
* 1994 Namibian general election
* 1994 South Af ...
, the
Republican Revolution swept the country. Clinton vetoed many of the Republican policies such as
abortion restrictions. He assembled a bipartisan coalition to pass
welfare reform and expand
health insurance for children.
In foreign policy, Clinton launched a
major bombing campaign in the Balkans, which led to the creation of a
United Nations protectorate
This is a list of territories which are directly administered, or once were, by the United Nations (UN). These are not to be confused with UN trust territories, which were run by a single country under a UN mandate.
List Current
Former
Se ...
in
Kosovo
Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a partially recognised state in Southeast Euro ...
. He played a major role of the expansion of
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
into former
Eastern Bloc countries but remained on good terms with
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
n President
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...
. During his second term, Clinton presided over the deregulation of the financial and telecommunications industry. Clinton's second term saw the first federal budget surpluses since the 1960s, but was partially overshadowed by his
impeachment in 1998. His impeachment arose after he denied having an affair with a White House intern,
Monica Lewinsky
Monica Samille Lewinsky (born July 23, 1973) is an American activist and writer. President Bill Clinton admitted to having an affair with Lewinsky while she worked at the White House as an intern in 1995 and 1996. The affair, and its repercus ...
under oath and telling Lewinsky to do the same. Though the House of Representatives voted to impeach Clinton, he was acquitted of all charges by the Senate. He appointed
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg ( ; ; March 15, 1933September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020. She was nominated by Presiden ...
and
Stephen Breyer to the
U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
.
Clinton left office with high approval ratings, though his preferred successor, Vice President
Al Gore
Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic no ...
, was narrowly defeated in the Electoral College by George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election. Historians and political scientists have tended to
rank
Rank is the relative position, value, worth, complexity, power, importance, authority, level, etc. of a person or object within a ranking, such as:
Level or position in a hierarchical organization
* Academic rank
* Diplomatic rank
* Hierarchy
* ...
Clinton as an above-average president.
1992 election
![President George H](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/President_George_H._W._Bush_and_President-Elect_Bill_Clinton_%281%29.jpg)
President
George H. W. Bush's popularity in the aftermath of the successful 1991
Gulf War
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...
convinced many prominent Democrats to sit out the 1992 presidential election. With party leaders like
Mario Cuomo
Mario Matthew Cuomo (, ; June 15, 1932 – January 1, 2015) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 52nd governor of New York for three terms, from 1983 to 1994. A member of the Democratic Party, Cuomo previously served as ...
and
Dick Gephardt staying out of the running, the
1992 Democratic primary field consisted of relatively unknown candidates. Among those who sought the Democratic nomination were former Senator
Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts, former Governor
Jerry Brown
Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. (born April 7, 1938) is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 34th and 39th governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected Secretary of ...
of California, and
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
, who had served as the
Governor of Arkansas since 1983. Clinton emerged as the front-runner for the nomination after the first set of primaries in February 1992. A founding member of the centrist
Democratic Leadership Council
The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) was founded in 1985 and closed in 2011. Founded and directed by Al From, prominent members include Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton (who was elected president in 1992 and 1996), Delaware Senator Joe Biden ( ...
, Clinton overcame opposition from more
liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
Democrats like Brown and clinched the Democratic nomination in April 1992.
Bush defeated a challenge from conservative commentator
Pat Buchanan to win his party's nomination. Meanwhile, independent candidate
Ross Perot, a billionaire businessman from Texas, emerged as a major factor in the race. Perot ran a populist campaign that focused on voters disillusioned with both parties, and he emphasized his opposition to the
North American Free Trade Agreement and his desire to balance the
federal budget. Polls taken in early June 1992 showed Bush leading the race, followed by Perot and then Clinton. From July to September, Perot temporarily dropped out of the race, causing severe damage to his candidacy. At the
1992 Democratic National Convention, Clinton
selected Senator
Al Gore
Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic no ...
of
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
as his running mate, and the successful convention helped unify Democrats behind Clinton. While the
1992 Republican National Convention
The 1992 Republican National Convention was held in the Astrodome in Houston, Texas, from August 17 to August 20, 1992. The convention nominated President George H. W. Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle for reelection. It was Bush's fourth ...
placed a heavy emphasis on social issues, Clinton's campaign focused on the state of the economy, which was still emerging from the
early 1990s recession.
On election day, Clinton won 43% of the popular vote and a wide majority in the
Electoral College. Bush won 37.4% of the popular vote, while Perot took 18.9%, the
strongest showing by a third party or independent presidential candidate since the
1912 election. Later studies showed that Perot drew his voters roughly equally from Clinton and Bush. Clinton's victory included a sweep of the
Northeastern United States, and he also won several states in the
Midwest, the
West
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...
, and the
South. By far voters' disappointment with the economy was the major favor in voting against the incumbent, with abortion a lesser factor. In the concurrent congressional elections, Democrats retained control of both houses of Congress.
Clinton used his inaugural address to deal with his uncertain mandate from the voters and lack of national experience. He drew heavily upon his lifelong study of the Protestant Bible, his education at Catholic Georgetown University, and the inaugural addresses of Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, John Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, and Woodrow Wilson.
Administration
Mack McLarty
Thomas Franklin "Mack" McLarty, III (born June 14, 1946) is an American business and political leader who served as President Bill Clinton's first White House Chief of Staff from 1993 to June 1994, and subsequently as Counselor to the Presiden ...
, a long-time friend of Clinton who had led a successful business career and had served as the chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party, became Clinton's first chief of staff. Clinton convinced
Lloyd Bentsen, a longtime Senator from Texas and the 1988 Democratic vice presidential nominee, to serve as his first Secretary of the Treasury. At the start of Clinton's first term, Bentsen,
OMB Director
Leon Panetta
Leon Edward Panetta (born June 28, 1938) is an American Democratic Party politician who has served in several different public office positions, including Secretary of Defense, CIA Director, White House Chief of Staff, Director of the Office of ...
, Secretary of Labor
Robert Reich
Robert Bernard Reich (; born June 24, 1946) is an American professor, author, lawyer, and political commentator. He worked in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, and served as Secretary of Labor from 1993 to 1997 in ...
, and policy coordinator
Robert Rubin
Robert Edward Rubin (born August 29, 1938) is an American retired banking executive, lawyer, and former government official. He served as the 70th United States Secretary of the Treasury during the Clinton administration. Before his government ...
were Clinton's top economic advisers. Clinton's first term foreign policy team was led by
National Security Advisor Anthony Lake
William Anthony Kirsopp Lake (born April 2, 1939) is an American diplomat and political advisor who served as the 17th United States National Security Advisor from 1993 to 1997 and as the 6th Executive Director of UNICEF from 2010 to 2017.
He ha ...
and Secretary of State
Warren Christopher
Warren Minor Christopher (October 27, 1925March 18, 2011) was an American lawyer, diplomat and politician. During Bill Clinton's first term as president, he served as the 63rd United States Secretary of State.
Born in Scranton, North Dakota, ...
, both of whom had served in the
Carter administration. Vice President Gore and First Lady Hillary Clinton emerged as two of the most influential figures of the Clinton administration, and Clinton solicited their opinions on a wide range of issues.
Clinton decided to appoint the first female Attorney General, settling on little-known corporate lawyer
Zoë Baird. In what became known as the
Nannygate matter, the Senate Judiciary Committee revealed that Baird had hired a
Peru
, image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg
, image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg
, other_symbol = Great Seal of the State
, other_symbol_type = National seal
, national_motto = "Firm and Happy f ...
vian couple, both
undocumented immigrants
Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upwar ...
, to work in her home. Baird withdrew her nomination and Clinton next chose
Kimba Wood
Kimba Maureen Wood (born January 21, 1944) is a Senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Wood has presided over many high-profile cases involving such figures as "Junk Bond Kin ...
, who was quickly forced to withdraw due to somewhat similar problems.
Janet Reno
Janet Wood Reno (July 21, 1938 – November 7, 2016) was an American lawyer who served as the 78th United States attorney general. She held the position from 1993 to 2001, making her the second-longest serving attorney general, behind only Wi ...
, a Florida
state's attorney, was nominated for Attorney General a few weeks later, and she won confirmation in March 1993.
[Harris, ''The Survivor'', p. 16.] After experiencing difficulty with these nominations, as well as that of
Lani Guinier
Carol Lani Guinier (; April 19, 1950 – January 7, 2022) was an American educator, legal scholar, and civil rights theorist. She was the Bennett Boskey Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and the first woman of color appointed to a tenured p ...
, Clinton brought in
David Gergen
David Richmond Gergen (born May 9, 1942) is an American political commentator and former presidential adviser who served during the administrations of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. He is currently a senior political ...
, who had previously served in Republican administrations, to serve as
Counselor to the President
Counselor or counsellor may refer to:
A professional In diplomacy and government
* Counsellor of State, senior member of the British royal family to whom the Monarch can delegate some functions in case of unavailability
* Counselor (dip ...
. Secretary of Defense
Les Aspin
Leslie Aspin Jr. (July 21, 1938 – May 21, 1995) was an American Democratic Party politician who served as the U.S. representative for Wisconsin's 1st congressional district from 1971 to 1993 and as the 18th United States Secretary of Defe ...
resigned in the aftermath of the
Battle of Mogadishu and was succeeded by
William Perry. Bentsen and McLarty also left office in 1994, and they were replaced by Rubin and Panetta, respectively.
After Clinton's re-election, Panetta stepped down and was replaced by former deputy chief of staff
Erskine Bowles
Erskine Boyce Bowles (born August 8, 1945) is an American businessman and political figure from North Carolina. He served from 2005 to 2010 as the president of the University of North Carolina system. In 1997–98 he served as White House Chi ...
.
Madeleine Albright
Madeleine Jana Korbel Albright (born Marie Jana Korbelová; May 15, 1937 – March 23, 2022) was an American diplomat and political scientist who served as the 64th United States secretary of state from 1997 to 2001. A member of the Democratic ...
became the first female Secretary of State,
Sandy Berger
Samuel Richard "Sandy" Berger (October 28, 1945 – December 2, 2015) was an attorney who served as the 18th US National Security Advisor for US President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001 after he had served as the Deputy National Security Adviso ...
succeeded Lake as National Security Adviser, and former Republican Senator
William Cohen
William Sebastian Cohen (born August 28, 1940) is an American lawyer, author, and politician from the U.S. state of Maine. A Republican, Cohen served as both a member of the United States House of Representatives (1973–1979) and Senate (1979 ...
became the Secretary of Defense. According to reporter John Harris,
Berger's close rapport with Clinton made him the leading foreign policy figure of Clinton's second term, as well as the most influential National Security Advisor since
Henry Kissinger
Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...
.
John Podesta
John David Podesta Jr. (born January 8, 1949) is an American Political consulting, political consultant who has served as Senior Advisor to the President of the United States, Senior Advisor to President Joe Biden for clean energy innovation an ...
assumed the position of Chief of Staff in 1998, while
Lawrence Summers
Lawrence Henry Summers (born November 30, 1954) is an American economist who served as the 71st United States secretary of the treasury from 1999 to 2001 and as director of the National Economic Council from 2009 to 2010. He also served as pres ...
replaced Rubin as Treasury Secretary in 1999.
Judicial appointments
Supreme Court
Clinton appointed two justices to the
Supreme Court. The first vacancy arose in March 1993, when Associate Justice
Byron White
Byron "Whizzer" Raymond White (June 8, 1917 April 15, 2002) was an American professional football player and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1962 until his retirement in 1993.
Born and raised in Colo ...
informed Clinton of his impending retirement. Clinton considered various nominating political leaders like Mario Cuomo and Secretary of the Interior
Bruce Babbitt
The English language name Bruce arrived in Scotland with the Normans, from the place name Brix, Manche in Normandy, France, meaning "the willowlands". Initially promulgated via the descendants of king Robert the Bruce (1274−1329), it has be ...
, whom he believed could become leaders on the court in a similar fashion to
Earl Warren. After weeks of consideration, Clinton began to favor appointing an experienced jurist, and he conducted interviews with
Stephen Breyer and
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg ( ; ; March 15, 1933September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020. She was nominated by Presiden ...
, both of whom served as federal appellate judges. Clinton announced Ginsburg's nomination in June 1993 and she was confirmed by the Senate two months later, making her the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court alongside
Sandra Day O'Connor.
Harry Blackmun retired in 1994, and Clinton successfully nominated Breyer to succeed Blackmun. The appointments did not greatly affect the ideological balance of the
Rehnquist Court
The Rehnquist Court was the period in the history of the Supreme Court of the United States during which William Rehnquist served as Chief Justice. Rehnquist succeeded Warren Burger as Chief Justice after the latter's retirement, and Rehnquist h ...
, as conservatives continued to hold a narrow majority on the Supreme Court.
Other courts
Clinton also appointed 66 judges to the
United States Courts of Appeals
The United States courts of appeals are the intermediate appellate courts of the United States federal judiciary. The courts of appeals are divided into 11 numbered circuits that cover geographic areas of the United States and hear appeals f ...
and 305 judges to the
United States district courts
The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...
. Among Clinton's appellate appointees were future Supreme Court Justice
Sonia Sotomayor
Sonia Maria Sotomayor (, ; born June 25, 1954) is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was nominated by President Barack Obama on May 26, 2009, and has served since ...
, as well as
Merrick Garland
Merrick Brian Garland (born November 13, 1952) is an American lawyer and jurist serving since March 2021 as the 86th United States attorney general. He previously served as a U.S. circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of ...
, who was
nominated
A candidate, or nominee, is the prospective recipient of an award or honor, or a person seeking or being considered for some kind of position; for example:
* to be elected to an office — in this case a candidate selection procedure occurs.
* ...
to the Supreme Court in 2016, though his nomination was never acted on by the Senate. Garland would later go on to become
Attorney General under
Joe Biden in 2021.
Domestic affairs
Budget
Clinton proposed a $16 billion stimulus package primarily to aid inner-city programs desired by liberals, but it was defeated by a Republican filibuster in the Senate.
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993
Clinton inherited major budget deficits left over from the
Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
and
Bush administrations; fiscal year 1992 had seen a $290 billion deficit. In order to cut the deficit, Bentsen, Panetta, and Rubin urged Clinton to pursue both tax increases and spending cuts. They argued that by taming the deficit, Clinton would encourage Federal Reserve Chairman
Alan Greenspan
Alan Greenspan (born March 6, 1926) is an American economist who served as the 13th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. He works as a private adviser and provides consulting for firms through his company, Greenspan Associates LLC. ...
to lower interest rates, which, along with increased confidence among investors, would lead to an economic boom. Some of Clinton's advisers also believed that a focus on cutting the deficit would be politically beneficial since it would potentially help Democrats shed their supposed "tax and spend" reputation. Though Secretary of Labor
Robert Reich
Robert Bernard Reich (; born June 24, 1946) is an American professor, author, lawyer, and political commentator. He worked in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, and served as Secretary of Labor from 1993 to 1997 in ...
argued that stagnant earnings represented a bigger economic issue than the deficits, Clinton decided to pursue deficit reduction as the major economic priority of his first year in office. In doing so, he reluctantly abandoned a middle-class tax cut that he had championed during the campaign.
Clinton presented his budget plan to Congress in February 1993, proposing a mix of tax increases and spending reductions that would cut the deficit in half by 1997. Republican leaders strongly opposed any tax increase, and they pressured congressional Republicans to unite in opposition to Clinton's budget, and not a single Republican would vote in favor of Clinton's proposed bill. Senate Democrats eliminated the implementation of a new
energy tax An energy tax is a tax that increases the price of energy (Fisher ''et al''., 1996, p. 416). Arguments in favour of energy taxes have included the pursuit of macroeconomic objectives, e.g., fiscal deficit reduction in the 1990s, as well as env ...
in favor of an increase in the
gasoline tax
A fuel tax (also known as a petrol, gasoline or gas tax, or as a fuel duty) is an excise tax imposed on the sale of fuel. In most countries the fuel tax is imposed on fuels which are intended for transportation. Fuels used to power agricultural ...
, but Clinton successfully resisted efforts to defeat his proposed expansion of the
earned income tax credit
The United States federal earned income tax credit or earned income credit (EITC or EIC) is a refundable tax credit for low- to moderate-income working individuals and couples, particularly those with children. The amount of EITC benefit depends ...
. By narrow margins, the Senate and the House of Representatives both passed versions of Clinton's budget bill, and a conference committee settled the differences between the House and Senate. The House passed the final bill in a 218–216 vote. After intensely lobbying
Bob Kerrey
Joseph Robert Kerrey (born August 27, 1943) is an American politician who served as the 35th Governor of Nebraska from 1983 to 1987 and as a United States Senator from Nebraska from 1989 to 2001. Before entering politics, he served in the Vietna ...
and other Democratic senators, Clinton won passage of his bill in the Senate in 50–50 tie vote; Vice President Gore
broke the tie. Clinton signed the
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993
The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 (or OBRA-93) was a federal law that was enacted by the 103rd United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on August 10, 1993. It has also been unofficially referred to as the Def ...
(OBRA–93) into law on August 10, 1993. The bill provided for $255 billion in spending cuts over a five-year period, with much of those cuts affecting Medicare and the military. It also provided for $241 billion in new revenue over five years; most of that revenue came from an increased gasoline tax or from higher taxes on those who made over $100,000 per year.
Government shutdowns
After Republicans took control of Congress in the 1994 elections, incoming
Speaker of the House
The speaker of a deliberative assembly, especially a legislative body, is its presiding officer, or the chair. The title was first used in 1377 in England.
Usage
The title was first recorded in 1377 to describe the role of Thomas de Hungerf ...
Newt Gingrich promised a conservative "revolution" that would implement tax cuts, welfare reform, and major domestic spending cuts. Gingrich failed to deliver major conservative reforms in the first hundred days of the
104th Congress, but many observers continued to wonder if the Speaker would seize stewardship over domestic policy from the office of the president. Meanwhile, with conservatism on the rise and
New Deal liberalism in retreat, Clinton hoped to forge a new consensus that did not totally reject government interventionism. In reaction to his party's electoral defeat, Clinton hired consultant
Dick Morris
Richard Samuel Morris (born November 28, 1948) is an American political author and commentator who previously worked as a pollster, political campaign consultant, and general political consultant.
A friend and advisor to Bill Clinton during ...
, who advocated that Clinton pursue a policy of
triangulation between conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats. By co-opting some of Republican ideas, Morris argued that Clinton could boost his own popularity while blocking the possibility of the drastic reforms advocated by some conservatives.
The Republican Congress presented Clinton with a budget plan that cut
Medicare spending and instituted major tax cuts for the wealthy, giving him a November 14, 1995 deadline to approve the bill. After the deadline, the government would be forced to temporarily shut down due to a lack of funding. In reaction, Clinton presented his own plan that did not include spending cuts to Medicare but would balance the budget by 2005. As Clinton refused to sign the Republican bill, major portions of the government suspended operations until Congress enacted a stopgap measure. The government shut down again on December 16 after Clinton vetoed a Republican budget proposal that would have extended tax cuts to the wealthy, cut spending on social programs, and shifted control of Medicaid to the states. After a 21-day government shutdown, Republicans, in danger of being seen as extremists by many in the public, accepted Clinton's budget.
Line item veto
Clinton secured passage of the
Line Item Veto Act of 1996
The Line Item Veto Act was a federal law of the United States that granted the President the power to line-item veto budget bills passed by Congress, but its effect was brief as the act was soon ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in '' ...
, becoming the first president to obtain that power although many had sought it. Its effect was very brief as the act was soon ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in ''
Clinton v. City of New York''.
Budget surplus
![Gross US Federal Debt as a Percentage of GDP, by President](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Gross_US_Federal_Debt_as_a_Percentage_of_GDP%2C_by_President.png)
Combined with a strong economy, the 1993 deficit reduction plan produced smaller budget deficits each year. With the improving state of the federal budget, Clinton and congressional Republicans reached a budget agreement in 1997 that provided for relatively small changes to the budget. In 1998, the federal government experienced the first budget surplus since the 1960s. Reflecting the importance of the budget surplus, the ''New York Times'' described the end of budget deficits as "the fiscal equivalent of the fall of the Berlin Wall." Though Republican leaders called for large tax cuts in light of the budgetary surplus, Clinton successfully resisted any major budgetary changes in the last three years of his term. In 1997, Clinton agreed to a deal with Republicans that lowered the tax rate on capital gains to 18 percent, implemented a $500 child tax credit, increased funding for children's health care, and raised the federal
cigarette tax from 24 cents per pack to 39 cents per pack. Republicans did, however, block some of Clinton's favored policies, including an increase of the federal
minimum wage and legislation designed to provide free prescription drugs to seniors.
Health care
1993 health care plan
When Clinton took office, approximately twenty percent of American adults lacked health insurance, despite the fact that the United States spent more on health care than other
developed countries
A developed country (or industrialized country, high-income country, more economically developed country (MEDC), advanced country) is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy and advanced technological infrastruct ...
. Many liberals advocated the establishment of a
single-payer healthcare
Single-payer healthcare is a type of universal healthcare in which the costs of essential healthcare for all residents are covered by a single public system (hence "single-payer").
Single-payer systems may contract for healthcare services from ...
system similar to that of
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, while a group of congressional Republicans developed a plan consisting of government subsidies and the implementation of a
mandate that would require individuals to purchase health insurance. The administration formed a task force, led by First Lady
Hillary Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...
, that was charged with creating a plan that would provide for
universal health care
Universal health care (also called universal health coverage, universal coverage, or universal care) is a health care system in which all residents of a particular country or region are assured access to health care. It is generally organized ar ...
. Assigning a major policy role to the First Lady was unprecedented and sparked controversy. Rejecting calls for a single-payer system, she proposed a health care plan based on the extension of employer-based health insurance. Individuals not insured by employers would be insured by the government. The plan would also expand the government's regulatory role in a concept known as "managed competition," with the government setting a minimum level of benefits that each plan could provide. Additionally, the plan would prevent insurers from charging different rates to customers based on age and
pre-existing condition
In the context of healthcare in the United States, a pre-existing condition is a medical condition that started before a person's health insurance went into effect. Before 2014, some insurance policies would not cover expenses due to pre-existi ...
s.
After winning the passage of OBRA–93 and the ratification of NAFTA in 1993, the President made health care his major area of legislative focus in 1994. Though many corporations supported Clinton's health care proposal in hopes of reducing their own costs, several other groups strongly objected to the plan. Liberals criticized Clinton for not proposing more far-reaching reforms, while conservatives attacked the expansion of government. Interest groups ran ad campaigns alleging that the Clinton health care bill would lead to
health care rationing Health care rationing refers to mechanisms that are used for resource allocation (''viz.'' ration) in health care.
Overall health care United States
Healthcare rationing in the United States of America is largely accomplished through market forc ...
, reduced choices, and increased costs. The
Health Insurance Association of America
AHIP (formerly America's Health Insurance Plans) is an American political advocacy and trade association of health insurance companies that offer coverage through the employer-provided, Medicare Advantage, Medicaid managed care, and individual m ...
's "
Harry and Louise" ad campaign proved especially important in influencing the public against the Clinton health care bill. Meanwhile, Congressmen
Newt Gingrich and columnist
Bill Kristol convinced congressional Republicans to resist any form of compromise. Clinton's decision not to engage congressional Democrats and moderate Republicans early in 1993, and his own refusal to compromise on various aspects of the bill, further damaged any hope of passing a major health care bill. With Republicans unified against his plan, and with his own party divided, Clinton decided to abandon health care reform in September 1994.
Other health care legislation
Within a month of taking office, Clinton signed the
Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993
The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) is a United States labor law requiring covered employers to provide employees with job-protected, unpaid leave for qualified medical and family reasons. The FMLA was a major part of President Bill C ...
. The act, which had been vetoed twice by Bush, guaranteed workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid medical leave for certain medical and family reasons, including pregnancy.
In August 1996, Clinton signed the
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA or the Kennedy– Kassebaum Act) is a United States Act of Congress enacted by the 104th United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on August 21, 1 ...
. The bipartisan bill granted people the right to keep their insurance plan if they changed jobs, and also contained several other health care reforms. In October 1996, Senator
Ted Kennedy
Edward Moore Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Massachusetts for almost 47 years, from 1962 until his death in 2009. A member of the Democratic ...
introduced a bill to provide health care coverage for children of the working poor, to be financed via a 75 cents a pack cigarette tax increase.
Working with Clinton and Republican Senator
Orrin Hatch
Orrin Grant Hatch (March 22, 1934 – April 23, 2022) was an American attorney and politician who served as a United States senator from Utah from 1977 to 2019. Hatch's 42-year Senate tenure made him the longest-serving Republican U.S. senato ...
, Kennedy won passage of the
Children's Health Insurance Program
The Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) – formerly known as the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) – is a program administered by the United States Department of Health and Human Services that provides matching funds to ...
in 1997.
Welfare reform
The successful passage of welfare reform in the 1990s was President Clinton's strategy of "triangulation"-purposely positioning himself midway between liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans, thereby building a majority coalition and enabling him to take full credit for the results. The strategy was called "
triangulation."
Shortly after the end of the government shutdown, Clinton announced his plan to pursue major changes to the
Aid to Families with Dependent Children
Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) was a federal assistance program in the United States in effect from 1935 to 1997, created by the Social Security Act (SSA) and administered by the United States Department of Health and Human Ser ...
(AFDC) program, which provided financial assistance to low-income families with children. Clinton believed that the program inadvertently trapped many poor families and individuals in a cycle of poverty, and he favored shifting funding from AFDC to job training and child care programs. Republicans shared Clinton's goal of making major changes to the welfare system, but they were unwilling to fund the job training programs and wanted to prevent legal immigrants from receiving welfare benefits. Clinton twice vetoed Republican plans that terminated AFDC, but he ultimately decided that he favored the Republican reform plan over no reform at all. In July 1996, Clinton signed the
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) is a United States federal law passed by the 104th United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. The bill implemented major changes to ...
, which terminated AFDC. In its place, the bill created the
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF ) is a federal assistance program of the United States. It began on July 1, 1997, and succeeded the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, providing cash assistance to indigent A ...
(TANF) program, which imposed new work requirements for and lifetime limits on aid recipients, and shifted responsibility for the administration of the programs to the states. Due in part to the improving economy and the expansion of the earned income tax credit, the number of Americans receiving cash public assistance declined from 12.2 million in 1996 to 5.3 million in 2001.
Commentators have sometimes speculated that Clinton's emphasis on entrepreneurship and the post-industrial sector was the co-option of conservative ideas first presented by Reagan Republicans in the 1980s. However Brent Cebul argues that triangulation represented a traditional liberal effort to structure the economy with the goals of creating new jobs, and producing fresh tax revenues that can support progressive policy innovations. This tradition goes back to the local and state policies inspired by the New Deal, and the "supply-side liberalism" of the 1970s.
Economy
![Budget Deficit 1971 to 2001](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Budget_Deficit_1971_to_2001.png)
Clinton presided over a "
Goldilocks economy," a period of low inflation and low unemployment. During the 1990s, the
Dow Jones Industrial Average
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), Dow Jones, or simply the Dow (), is a stock market index of 30 prominent companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States.
The DJIA is one of the oldest and most commonly followed equity inde ...
quadrupled, and the share of families with investments in stocks rose from 32 percent in 1989 to 51 percent in 2001.
Income inequality
There are wide varieties of economic inequality, most notably income inequality measured using the distribution of income (the amount of money people are paid) and wealth inequality measured using the distribution of wealth (the amount of we ...
also grew, as the richest households earned a higher proportion of the total income. Nonetheless, median household income, adjusted for inflation to 2000 dollars, grew from $38,262 in 1995 to $42,151 in 2000. By 2000, the unemployment rate had declined to four percent, while the poverty rate had declined to 11.3 percent.
David Greenberg, a professor of history and media studies at
Rutgers University
Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...
, argued that:
Clinton proposed a $30 billion economic stimulus package in his first year in office, but his proposal was blocked by Senate Republicans, and he would be unable to win the passage of any similar proposal for the remainder of his presidency. Clinton held office at a time when
monetarism
Monetarism is a school of thought in monetary economics that emphasizes the role of governments in controlling the amount of money in circulation. Monetarist theory asserts that variations in the money supply have major influences on nation ...
had supplanted
Keynesianism
Keynesian economics ( ; sometimes Keynesianism, named after British economist John Maynard Keynes) are the various macroeconomic theories and models of how aggregate demand (total spending in the economy) strongly influences economic output ...
as the dominant theory of economic growth among many in Washington. Under the theory of monetarism, Clinton's fiscal policies would have relatively little impact on the economy. Instead, monetarists contended that the economy was guided by the
Federal Reserve Board of Governors
The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, commonly known as the Federal Reserve Board, is the main governing body of the Federal Reserve System. It is charged with overseeing the Federal Reserve Banks and with helping implement the m ...
, a group of appointed officials who set monetary policy. Throughout Clinton's presidency, Alan Greenspan served as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and he emerged as an especially prominent public figure as the economy improved in mid-to-late 1990s. Though much of the credit for the strong economy was assigned to Greenspan, the Clinton administration also basked in the approval of Americans who enjoyed the benefits of a strong economy, and good economic conditions helped Clinton remain popular despite controversies over his personal life.
Deregulation
Clinton presided over a period of deregulation in the telecommunications and financial industries. In 1999, Clinton signed into law the
Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act
The Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLBA), also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, () is an act of the 106th United States Congress (1999–2001). It repealed part of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933, removing barriers in ...
(GLBA). The act repealed a provision of the New Deal's
Glass–Steagall Act of 1933 that had required banks to either classify themselves as either
commercial bank
A commercial bank is a financial institution which accepts deposits from the public and gives loans for the purposes of consumption and investment to make profit.
It can also refer to a bank, or a division of a large bank, which deals with co ...
, which were subject to federal oversight and protections like
deposit insurance, or as
investment banks
Investment banking pertains to certain activities of a financial services company or a corporate division that consist in advisory-based financial transactions on behalf of individuals, corporations, and governments. Traditionally associated wit ...
, which faced less regulations but did not benefit from federal protections. The financial services industry had attempted to repeal this provision of the GLBA since the 1980s, and they were finally successful due to cooperation from Secretary of the Treasury Rubin and Clintonians, who believed that the financial industry needed looser regulation in order for it to remain competitive globally. The bill passed both houses of Congress with only minimal resistance. Opposition to the plan came primarily from liberals like Senator
Paul Wellstone
Paul David Wellstone (July 21, 1944 – October 25, 2002) was an American academic, author, and politician who represented Minnesota in the United States Senate from 1991 until he was killed in a plane crash near Eveleth, Minnesota, in 2002. A ...
, who feared that looser banking regulations would lead to financial crises.
Shortly before leaving office, Clinton signed the
Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000
The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (CFMA) is United States federal legislation that ensured financial products known as over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives remained unregulated. It was signed into law on December 21, 2000 by President ...
, which deregulated trading of
derivatives. The bill also included the "
Enron loophole," which lessened regulation of
energy trading by companies such as
Enron
Enron Corporation was an American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. It was founded by Kenneth Lay in 1985 as a merger between Lay's Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth, both relatively small regional compani ...
.
Clinton also signed the
Telecommunications Act of 1996
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is a United States federal law enacted by the 104th United States Congress on January 3, 1996, and signed into law on February 8, 1996, by President Bill Clinton. It primarily amended Chapter 5 of Title 47 of ...
, which represented the first major overhaul of the
Communications Act of 1934.
Social issues
Clinton supported the right of homosexual individuals to serve in the military, and, along with Secretary of Defense
Les Aspin
Leslie Aspin Jr. (July 21, 1938 – May 21, 1995) was an American Democratic Party politician who served as the U.S. representative for Wisconsin's 1st congressional district from 1971 to 1993 and as the 18th United States Secretary of Defe ...
, he developed a plan that would allow openly gay individuals to serve in the military. Clinton's proposal received strong pushback from military leaders, especially Marine Commandant
Carl Epting Mundy Jr. In response, General
Colin Powell suggested a compromise solution in which the military would not ask recruits about their sexual orientation, but would retain the right to discharge those who were gay. Clinton resisted the compromise policy, which became known as "
don't ask, don't tell
"Don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) was the official United States policy on military service of non-heterosexual people, instituted during the Clinton administration. The policy was issued under Department of Defense Directive 1304.26 on Decemb ...
," but congressional leaders of both parties made it clear that they would reverse any executive order allowing gay individuals to openly serve in the military. Clinton ultimately accepted the don't ask, don't tell policy, and over the ensuing ten years approximately 10,000 people were discharged from the military after they revealed their homosexuality. In September 1996, Clinton signed the
Defense of Marriage Act
The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was a United States federal law passed by the 104th United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. It banned federal recognition of same-sex marriage by limiting the definition of marr ...
, which denied federal recognition to
same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being Mexico, constituting ...
s, though it had passed with a veto-proof majority and he called the law unnecessary and divisive.
On taking office, Clinton revoked a
gag order
A gag order (also known as a gagging order or suppression order) is an order, typically a legal order by a court or government, restricting information or comment from being made public or passed onto any unauthorized third party. The phrase may ...
that had prevented
abortion
Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pre ...
counseling in federally funded clinics. He also signed an executive order allowing the use of fetal tissue in medical research. These early policies moves signaled Clinton's break with the socially conservative policies of his predecessors. Clinton also signed the
Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act
The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE or the Access Act, Pub. L. No. 103-259, 108 Stat. 694) (May 26, 1994, ) is a United States law that was signed by President Bill Clinton in May 1994, which prohibits the following three things: ...
, which made it a federal crime to obstruct
abortion clinic
Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pregnan ...
s and places of worship. In April 1996, Clinton vetoed a bill to prohibit late or partial birth abortion calling the procedure potentially life-saving and arguing that the small group of women likely to be affected should not become pawns. Catholic bishops condemned his move. Clinton vetoed another such law in 1997. Republicans later passed the
, which was signed by President George W. Bush in 2003.
In November 1993, Clinton signed the
Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act
The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act ( Pub.L. 103–159, 107 Stat. 1536, enacted November 30, 1993), often referred to as the Brady Act or the Brady Bill, is an Act of the United States Congress that mandated federal background checks on ...
, which required a
background check
A background check is a process a person or company uses to verify that an individual is who they claim to be, and this provides an opportunity to check and confirm the validity of someone's criminal record, education, employment history, and oth ...
for gun purchasers. In 1994, Clinton signed the
Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act
The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, commonly referred to as the 1994 Crime Bill, the Clinton Crime Bill, or the Biden Crime Law, is an Act of Congress dealing with crime and law enforcement; it became law in 1994. It is t ...
, which included a provision known as the
Federal Assault Weapons Ban. The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act provided funding for 100,000 local law enforcement officials, and established a federal
three-strikes law
In the United States, habitual offender laws (commonly referred to as three-strikes laws) have been implemented since at least 1952, and are part of the United States Justice Department's Anti-Violence Strategy. These laws require a person who ...
that enhanced criminal penalties for repeat offenders. The Federal Assault Weapons Ban barred the sale of several kinds of
Semi-automatic rifle
A semi-automatic rifle is an autoloading rifle that fires a single cartridge with each pull of the trigger, and uses part of the fired cartridge's energy to eject the case and load another cartridge into the chamber. For comparison, a bolt-a ...
s, but the provision did not apply to the 1.5 million semi-automatic rifles already in the possession of private owners, nor did it affect other types of guns.
Environmentalism
Liberal Democrats gave environmentalism a higher priority than the economy-focused Clinton did. The Clinton administration responded to public demand for environmental protection. Clinton created 17 national monuments by executive order, prohibiting commercial activities such as logging, mining, and drilling for oil or gas. Clinton also imposed a permanent freeze on drilling in maritime sanctuaries. Other presidential and departmental orders protected various wetlands and coastal resources and extended the existing moratorium on new oil leases off the coast line through 2013. After the Republican victory in the 1994 elections, Clinton vetoed a series of budget bills that contained amendments designed to scale back environmental restrictions. Clinton boasted that his administration "adopted the strongest air-quality protections ever, improved the safety of our drinking water and food, cleaned up about three times as many toxic waste sites as the two previous administrations combined,
ndhelped to promote a new generation of fuel-efficient vehicles and vehicles that run on alternative fuels".
Vice President Gore was keenly concerned with global climate change, and Clinton created the President's Council on Sustainable Development. In November 1998, Clinton signed the
Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement in which
developed countries
A developed country (or industrialized country, high-income country, more economically developed country (MEDC), advanced country) is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy and advanced technological infrastruct ...
committed to reducing
carbon emissions. However, the Senate refused to ratify it since the agreement did not apply to the rapidly growing emissions of
developing countries
A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...
, such as China, India, and Indonesia.
The key person on environmental issues was
Bruce Babbitt
The English language name Bruce arrived in Scotland with the Normans, from the place name Brix, Manche in Normandy, France, meaning "the willowlands". Initially promulgated via the descendants of king Robert the Bruce (1274−1329), it has be ...
, the former head of the
League of Conservation Voters
The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) is an American environmental advocacy group. LCV says that it "advocates for sound environmental laws and policies, holds elected officials accountable for their votes and actions, and elects pro-environmen ...
, who served for all eight years as
Clinton's Secretary of the Interior. According to John D. Leshy:
:His most remembered legacies will likely be his advocacy of environmental restoration, his efforts to safeguard and build support for the ESA (
Endangered Species Act of 1973
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA or "The Act"; 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq.) is the primary law in the United States for protecting imperiled species. Designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of ec ...
) and the biodiversity that it helps protect., And the public land conservation measures that flowered on his watch.
The Interior Department worked to protect scenic and historic areas of America's federal public lands. In 2000 Babbitt created the
National Landscape Conservation System
National Conservation Lands, formally known as the National Landscape Conservation System, is a collection of lands in 873 federally recognized areas considered to be the crown jewels of the American West.[U.S. National Monument
In the United States, a national monument is a protected area that can be created from any land owned or controlled by the federal government by proclamation of the President of the United States or an act of Congress. National monuments prot ...]
s and 14
National Conservation Area
National Conservation Area is a designation for certain protected areas in the United States. They are nature conservation areas managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) under the National Landscape Conservation System.
Restrictions vary b ...
s to be managed by the
Bureau of Land Management in such a way as to keep them "healthy, open, and wild."
A major issue involved low fees charged ranchers who grazed cattle on public lands. The "animal unit month" (AUM) fee was only $1.35 and was far below the 1983 market value. The argument was that the federal government in effect was subsidizing ranchers, with a few major corporations controlling millions of acres of grazing land. Babbitt and Oklahoma Congressman
Mike Synar
Michael Lynn Synar (October 17, 1950 – January 9, 1996) was an American Democratic politician who represented Oklahoma's 2nd congressional district in Congress for eight terms.
Early life and career
Synar was born in Vinita, Oklahoma, His ...
tried to rally environmentalists and raise fees, but senators from the
Western United States
The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the We ...
successfully blocked their proposals.
Agriculture
Although Governor Clinton had a large farm base in Arkansas; as president he sharply cut support for farmers and raised taxes on tobacco. At one high level policy meeting budget expert
Alice Rivlin
Alice Mitchell Rivlin (born Georgianna Alice Mitchell; March 4, 1931 – May 14, 2019) was an American economist and budget official. She served as the 16th Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve from 1996 to 1999. Before her appointment at the F ...
told the president she had a new slogan for his reelection campaign: "I’m going to end welfare as we know it for farmers.” Clinton was annoyed and retorted, “Farmers are good people. I know we have to do these things. We’re going to make these cuts. But we don’t have to feel good about it.”
With exports accounting for more than a fourth of farm output, farm organizations joined business interests to defeat human rights activists regarding Most Favored Nation (MFN) trade status for China. They took the position that major tariff increases would hurt importers and consumers. They warned that China would retaliate to hurt American exporters. They wanted more liberal trade policies and less attention to Chinese human rights abuses.
Environmentalists began taking a keen interest in agricultural policies. The feared that farming had a growing negative impact on the environment in terms of soil erosion and the destruction of wetlands. The expanding use of pesticides and fertilizers polluted soil and water not just on each farm but downstream into rivers and lakes and urban areas as well.
Other policies
The
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or ...
, enacted by Clinton on October 21, 1998, served as the first significant amendment to the
Copyright Act since 1976. The DMCA provided a framework for
sound recording copyright owners and recording artists to seek public performance royalties under statute, which proved to be a landmark achievement for the recording industry. The law included a provision reiterating the "
fair use
Fair use is a doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to balance the interests ...
" of copyrighted materials, and another provision that exempted internet service providers from responsibility for inadvertently transmitting copyrighted works.
That same month, Clinton also signed the
Copyright Term Extension Act
The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act – also known as the Copyright Term Extension Act, Sonny Bono Act, or (derisively) the Mickey Mouse Protection Act – extended copyright terms in the United States in 1998. It is one of several a ...
, which retroactively extended copyright protection and stopped copyrighted works entering into the public domain for an extra twenty years.
Responding to declining
home-ownership rates for low-income families, Clinton sought to reform the
Community Reinvestment Act
The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA, P.L. 95-128, 91 Stat. 1147, title VIII of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1977, ''et seq.'') is a United States federal law designed to encourage commercial banks and savings associations to hel ...
(CRA) to encourage banks to make loans to inhabitants of low-income areas. The administration implemented new rules that would prevent banks from expanding if they failed to meet benchmarks for loans to low-income areas. Between 1993 and 1998, CRA lending increased at a faster rate than other loans, and home values in many CRA areas rose. Banks implemented new strategies designed to cater to lower-income borrowers, including the
adjustable-rate mortgage
A variable-rate mortgage, adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM), or tracker mortgage is a mortgage loan with the interest rate on the note periodically adjusted based on an index which reflects the cost to the lender of borrowing on the credit markets.Wie ...
. This effort was part of a broader initiative, the National Homeownership Strategy, which helped increase the share of Americans who owned their own homes from 64 percent to 67.4 percent during Clinton's presidency. Many of the
sub-prime mortgages that allowed Americans to purchase homes would later play a role in sparking the
Financial crisis of 2007–2008
Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fi ...
.
"Pardongate" was the
Bill Clinton pardon controversy when critics attacked his manner of giving out 450 pardons, a third of them on his last day in office. Scholars use two different models to describe the pardons process. Clinton used the presidential model, viewing the pardon power as a convenient resource to be used to help party activists or to advance specific policy goals. Critics favored the agency model, which views the pardons process as a nonpolitical matter for legal experts in the Department of Justice. An investigation found that he was legally within his rights.
Foreign affairs
Critics agree that foreign policy was not a high priority for Clinton and his administration. According to Harvard Professor
Stephen Walt:
Critics on the right argue that he is too eager to accommodate a rising China, too blind to Russia's corruption and cronyism, and too slow to use force against states like Yugoslavia or Iraq. On the left, liberals bemoan Clinton's failure to prevent the genocide in Rwanda, his tardy response to the bloodletting in the Balkans, and his abandonment of his early pledge to build a multilateral world order grounded in stronger international institutions. Even pragmatic centrists find him wanting, deriding his foreign policy as "social work" that is too easily swayed by ethnic lobbies, public opinion polls, and media buzz.
Walt, however, gives two cheers for Clinton's realism and his accomplishments:
Under Clinton, the United States consolidated its Cold War victory by bringing three former Warsaw Pact members into its own alliance. It shored up its alliances in East Asia
and readied itself for a possible competition with a rising China while encouraging Beijing to accept a status quo that favored the United States....It forced its allies to bear a greater share of the burden in Europe and East Asia while insisting on leading both alliances. And together with its NATO allies, it asserted the right to intervene in the sovereign territory of other states, even without Security Council authorization. Clinton may cloak U.S. policy in the rhetoric of "world order" and general global interests, but its defining essence remains the unilateral exercise of sovereign power.
Trade
With the end of the Cold War, trade became an increasingly prominent issue in international politics, as countries sought reduced tariffs and other trade agreements. Clinton believed that
globalization
Globalization, or globalisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences), is the process of foreign relation ...
would promote economic prosperity and democratization throughout the world, and he pursued several major trade agreements. President Bush had signed the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico in the final year of his term, but the agreement had not yet been ratified when Clinton took office. Opposition to NAFTA crossed party lines, as organized labor allies like Democratic Congressman
Dick Gephardt and conservative isolationists like
Pat Buchanan both opposed ratification. With the fate of NAFTA still uncertain in the House of Representatives, Vice President Gore met Ross Perot in a televised debate. Gore's strong performance in the debate, as well as the Clinton administration's effective lobbying campaign, helped NAFTA win ratification in November 1993.
The administration negotiated approximately 300 trade agreements with other countries. By granting China temporary
most favoured nation status in 1993, his administration minimized tariff levels in Chinese imports. In 2000, Clinton signed a bill granting
permanent normal trade relations
The status of permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) is a legal designation in the United States for free trade with a foreign nation. The designation was changed from '' most favored nation'' (MFN) to ''normal trade relations'' by Section 5003 of ...
to China, and American imports from China massively increased in the subsequent years.
Irish peace talks
![President Bill Clinton and Gerry Adams](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/President_Bill_Clinton_and_Gerry_Adams.jpg)
In 1992, before his presidency, Clinton proposed sending a peace envoy to
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
, but this was dropped to avoid tensions with the British government. In November 1995, in a ceasefire during
the Troubles
The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an " ...
, Clinton became the first president to visit Northern Ireland, examining both of the two divided communities of
Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...
. Despite
unionist criticism, Clinton used this as a way to negotiate an end to the violent conflict with London, Dublin, the paramilitaries and the other groups. Clinton went on to play a key role in the
peace talks, which produced the
Good Friday Agreement
The Good Friday Agreement (GFA), or Belfast Agreement ( ga, Comhaontú Aoine an Chéasta or ; Ulster-Scots: or ), is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April 1998 that ended most of the violence of The Troubles, a political conflict in No ...
in 1998.
Military interventions
Somalia
Unrest in
Somalia
Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constituti ...
had escalated into a full-scale
civil war
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
in 1991. President Bush had dispatched 25,000 soldiers to the country to join a United Nations peacekeeping mission. By the late 1993, Somalia remained in a state of civil war, and 4,000 American soldiers still served in the UN peacekeeping mission. In October 1993,
U.S. special forces launched
a raid on
Mogadishu
Mogadishu (, also ; so, Muqdisho or ; ar, مقديشو ; it, Mogadiscio ), locally known as Xamar or Hamar, is the capital and most populous city of Somalia. The city has served as an important port connecting traders across the Indian Oc ...
with the intention of capturing warlord
Mohamed Farrah Aidid
Mohamed Farrah Hassan Aidid ( so, Maxamed Faarax Xasan Caydiid; ar, محمد فرح حسن عيديد; 15 December 1934 – 1 August 1996) was a Somali general and diplomat.
Educated in both Rome and Moscow, he served as a chief in the Italian ...
, who had led attacks against U.N. forces. The raid ended in failure and in the deaths of eighteen Americans. The humiliating incident led Americans to questioned the presence of U.S. soldiers in Somalia. After Somali leaders signed a peace agreement in early 1994, Clinton removed U.S. forces from the country.
Rwanda
The experience in Somalia exacerbated internal debates around the role of American military power in the
Post–Cold War era
The –Cold War era is a period of history that follows the end of the Cold War, which represents history after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union. This period saw the United States became the world's sole superpower in the world and paved the way ...
. In a victory for those who favored non-intervention, Clinton placed new limits on the deployment of his troops, especially as part of U.N. peacekeeping missions. In April 1994, the
Hutu
The Hutu (), also known as the Abahutu, are a Bantu ethnic or social group which is native to the African Great Lakes region. They mainly live in Rwanda, Burundi and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they form one of the p ...
of
Rwanda engaged in a
genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...
against the minority
Tutsi
The Tutsi (), or Abatutsi (), are an ethnic group of the African Great Lakes region. They are a Bantu-speaking ethnic group and the second largest of three main ethnic groups in Rwanda and Burundi (the other two being the largest Bantu ethnic ...
, killing 800,000 people in a three-month span. The UN sent a
small force to provide aid, but the U.S., with no strategic or economic interest in the country, did not intervene. Clinton would later describe the non-intervention in Rwanda as the worst mistake of his administration.
Haiti
A military junta in
Haiti had ousted the country's democratically elected president,
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in 1991. Clinton was inclined to restore Aristide, in part due to stem the flow of Haitians fleeing to the U.S. However many Americans opposed a military intervention in a nation which posed no threat to the United States. Despite congressional and public opposition, Clinton announced in September 1994 that he would remove the junta if it did not voluntarily relinquish power. At the same time, he sent a peace mission consisting of Powell, former President Jimmy Carter, and Senator
Sam Nunn
Samuel Augustus Nunn Jr. (born September 8, 1938) is an American politician who served as a United States Senator from Georgia (1972–1997) as a member of the Democratic Party.
After leaving Congress, Nunn co-founded the Nuclear Threat Initia ...
to convince the military government to step aside. As U.S. soldiers prepared to
launch a strike against Haiti, the military government agreed to restore Aristide and no combat took place.
Balkans: Serbia, Bosnia
![SocialistYugoslavia en](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/SocialistYugoslavia_en.svg)
During the closing stages of the Cold War,
Serbian nationalist
Slobodan Milošević took power as the leader of the
Socialist Republic of Serbia. His nationalist policies alienated leaders of the other constituent countries of
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
, a multi-ethnic state that had been established in 1918.
Slovenia
Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...
,
Croatia
, image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg
, image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg
, anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capit ...
, and the
Republic of Macedonia
North Macedonia, ; sq, Maqedonia e Veriut, (Macedonia before February 2019), officially the Republic of North Macedonia,, is a country in Southeast Europe. It gained independence in 1991 as one of the successor states of Yugoslavia. It ...
each declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, but Serbian forces
forcefully opposed Croatia's independence, beginning the
Yugoslav Wars
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related Naimark (2003), p. xvii. ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and insurgencies that took place in the SFR Yugoslavia from 1991 to 2001. The conflicts both led up to and resulted from ...
. In 1992,
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and H ...
also declared independence. As in Croatia, a significant minority of Serbs opposed to independence lived in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the
Bosnian War began between proponents and opponents of independence.
Ethnic cleansing campaigns
conducted by Bosnian Serbs provoked world condemnation, and the issue of whether to intervene in the Balkan Wars posed one of the greatest foreign policy questions as Clinton took office. Activists such
Elie Wiesel pressured Clinton to help put an end to the ethnic cleansing, and Clinton himself wanted to do something to end the violence. General Colin Powell initially convinced Clinton to abstain from a military intervention, arguing that the United States should not become involved in a region in which it lacked clear strategic interests.
In May 1994, after Serb forces invaded safe zones established by the
United Nations Protection Force
The United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR; also known by its French acronym FORPRONU: ''Force de Protection des Nations Unies'') was the first United Nations peacekeeping force in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Yugoslav War ...
, Clinton authorized air strikes against Serb positions. The air strikes did not end Serb advances, and in July 1995 over 8,000
Bosniaks were killed in the
Srebrenica massacre
The Srebrenica massacre ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Masakr u Srebrenici, Масакр у Сребреници), also known as the Srebrenica genocide ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Genocid u Srebrenici, Геноцид у Сребрен ...
. Clinton and National Security Adviser
Anthony Lake
William Anthony Kirsopp Lake (born April 2, 1939) is an American diplomat and political advisor who served as the 17th United States National Security Advisor from 1993 to 1997 and as the 6th Executive Director of UNICEF from 2010 to 2017.
He ha ...
formulated a plan to end the genocide in Bosnia, with the key part of the plan being a major
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
air campaign against the Bosnian Serbs. After Clinton won the support of European leaders for the campaign, NATO launched
Operation Deliberate Force
Operation Deliberate Force was a sustained air campaign conducted by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), in concert with the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) ground operations, to undermine the military capability of the ...
. In reaction to bombing campaign and the advance of Bosniak forces, Milošević agreed to begin peace talks. Clinton sponsored the talks in Dayton Ohio, putting
Richard Holbrooke
Richard Charles Albert Holbrooke (April 24, 1941 – December 13, 2010) was an American diplomat and author. He was the only person to have held the position of Assistant Secretary of State for two different regions of the world (Asia from 1977 ...
in charge. The subsequent
Dayton Agreement
The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also known as the Dayton Agreement or the Dayton Accords ( Croatian: ''Daytonski sporazum'', Serbian and Bosnian: ''Dejtonski mirovni sporazum'' / Дејтонски миро ...
ended the Bosnian War and divided Bosnia into two autonomous regions.
Kosovo
In 1998, the
Kosovo War
The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that started 28 February 1998 and lasted until 11 June 1999. It was fought by the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (i.e. Serbia and Montenegro), which controlled Kosovo before the wa ...
broke out in
Kosovo
Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a partially recognised state in Southeast Euro ...
, an
of Serbia. A group of ethnic
Albanians known as the
Kosovo Liberation Army sought independence, launching attacks against Serb forces. In putting down the attacks, Serb forces engaged in an ethnic cleaning campaign against the Albanian population. Though NATO leaders were reluctant to become involved, and Russia threatened to veto any U.N. resolution allowing for military action, many of Clinton's advisers called for another intervention in the Balkans. Hoping to again force Milošević into peace talks, Clinton ordered a
bombing campaign against Serb forces in March 1999. As Milošević refused to capitulate, NATO escalated the bombing campaign, resulting in the devastation of the Serbian capital of
Belgrade. As domestic opposition to his leadership grew, Milošević agreed to withdraw troops and allow
NATO-led peacekeeping force to be stationed in Kosovo. Kosovo's status would be
disputed in subsequent years, while Milošević was
overthrown in October 2000.
NATO and Russia
![History of NATO enlargement](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/History_of_NATO_enlargement.svg)
One of Clinton's major priorities was the expansion of NATO into former
Eastern Bloc countries in
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whic ...
, as Clinton believed that NATO would provide a stabilizing influence on these countries. Russian leaders felt threatened as NATO approached its border. Clinton cultivated a close relationship with Russian President
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...
, and in 1997, Clinton won Yeltsin's reluctant assent to the expansion of NATO, clearing the way for the accession of
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...
,
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
, and the
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...
. Yeltsin pressed for a commitment not to expand NATO into the
Baltic states, but Clinton was not willing to bind his successors to such a promise. The French pushed for the addition of
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...
and
Slovenia
Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...
to NATO, but Clinton opposed this move, as he believed that too quick of an expansion into Eastern Europe would dilute the strength of NATO.
Clinton tried to help Yeltsin avoid an economic depression, reform the Russian economy, and prevent a resurgence of Communism. Clinton quietly helped Yeltsin win reelection in 1996, and played a major role in Russia's entrance into the
Group of Eight
The Group of Eight (G8) was an inter-governmental political forum from 1997 until 2014. It had formed from incorporating Russia into the Group of Seven, or G7, and returned to its previous name after Russia left in 2014.
The forum originate ...
(G8), a conference of the countries with the largest economies.
Terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
emerged as an increasingly important national security issue during Clinton's administration. In the closing years of the
Soviet–Afghan War
The Soviet–Afghan War was a protracted armed conflict fought in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. It saw extensive fighting between the Soviet Union and the Afghan mujahideen (alongside smaller groups of anti-Sovie ...
,
Osama bin Laden had organized
al-Qaeda, a militant
Sunni organization. The al-Qaeda leaders despised Western values, and were particularly incensed by the U.S. military presence in
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
. Al-Qaeda grew during the 1990s and engaged in terrorism in the
Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...
and elsewhere. The group claimed responsibility for the
1993 World Trade Center bombing, the
bombings of two U.S. embassies in
East Africa, and the
bombing of a U.S. ship at port in
Yemen
Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...
. In retaliation, Clinton ordered the
bombing of al-Qaeda facilities in Afghanistan and Sudan. The
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
and the military tracked bin Laden's movements in an attempt to capture or kill him, but Bin Laden evaded capture deep within the mountains of Afghanistan.
North Korea
![William Cohen, Jo Myong Rok, Kim Ok (Pentagon in Washington)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/SD_William_Cohen_meets_with_Jo_Myong_Rok_in_the_Pentagon.jpg)
In 1994, North Korea blocked international inspectors from verifying the regime's adherence to the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT, is an international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation ...
. The administration believed that the North Koreans were processing plutonium from a reactor to build two atomic bombs.
President Clinton recalled that "I was determined to prevent North Korea from developing a nuclear arsenal, even at the risk of war".
Declassified Clinton-era documents illustrate that the administration had planned for a possible war during the 1994 nuclear crisis.
The Pentagon had hypothetical plans to strike the North Korea nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, but the order was never given.
Other issues and events
Clinton sought to mediate the
Arab–Israeli conflict
The Arab–Israeli conflict is an ongoing intercommunal phenomenon involving political tension, military conflicts, and other disputes between Arab countries and Israel, which escalated during the 20th century, but had mostly faded out by the ...
, encouraging the leaders of
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
and the
Palestine Liberation Organization to reach the 1993
Oslo Accords. A subsequent agreement created the
Palestinian National Authority
The Palestinian National Authority (PA or PNA; ar, السلطة الوطنية الفلسطينية '), commonly known as the Palestinian Authority and officially the State of Palestine, , which was given control over the
Gaza strip
The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...
, a territory that Israel had taken control of in the 1967
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states (primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) from 5 to 10 Ju ...
. During his second terms, Clinton sought to revive the dormant peace process, specifically by convincing Israel to turn over control of the
West Bank
The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
, another territory captured in the Six-Day War. Clinton hosted the
2000 Camp David Summit between Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat
Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf al-Qudwa al-Husseini (4 / 24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004), popularly known as Yasser Arafat ( , ; ar, محمد ياسر عبد الرحمن عبد الرؤوف عرفات القدوة الحسيني, Mu ...
and Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Barak, but the two sides were unable to reach an agreement. In September 2000, the Palestinians launched an uprising known as the
Second Intifada, which would continue after the end of Clinton's presidency.
Clinton maintained the economic sanctions and the
no-fly zones
A no-fly zone, also known as a no-flight zone (NFZ), or air exclusion zone (AEZ), is a territory or area established by a military power over which certain aircraft are not permitted to fly. Such zones are usually set up in an enemy power's te ...
imposed on
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War. In retaliation for Iraq's attempted assassination of former President Bush, Clinton ordered
cruise missile strikes on the headquarters of the
Iraqi Intelligence Service
:
The Iraqi Intelligence Service (Arabic: جهاز المخابرات العراقي, ''Jihaz Al-Mukhabarat Al-Eiraqii''), full name in Arabic language , Arabic]: جهاز المخابرات العامة العراقية "Jihaz almukhabarat aleama ...
. After Hussein repeatedly obstructed the UN commission charged with monitoring Iraq's
Iraq and weapons of mass destruction, WMD program, the U.S. and Britain engaged in a
bombing campaign against Iraqi weapon facilities. These raids would continue intermittently until the
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 ...
.
In January 1995, Clinton's economic advisers informed him that the Mexican government would
default on its loans unless the U.S. offered a $25 billion loan package. Though Clinton and Speaker of the House Gingrich both believed that preventing the Mexican economy from collapsing was important to U.S. interests, Congress refused to authorize an aid package. The Clinton administration also helped limit the effects of the
1997 Asian financial crisis by keeping U.S. markets open.
Despite opposition from conservatives and veterans of the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...
, Clinton normalized relations with
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
in 1995. That same year, he became the first U.S. president to visit Vietnam. Clinton was also the first president to visit
Botswana
Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label= Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalaha ...
,
Slovenia
Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...
, and
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
.
In 1997,
Tony Blair
Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...
of the
Labour Party won election as the
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers. As modern ...
. Clinton and Blair shared a centrist approach to politics, and they jointly promoted their "
Third Way
The Third Way is a centrist political position that attempts to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of centre-right economic policies with centre-left social policies. The Third Way was born from ...
" (between traditional left-wing and right-wing policies) on the international stage.
Impeachment and acquittal
Prior to taking office, Bill and Hillary Clinton had invested in the
Whitewater Development Corporation, a real estate development company owned by
Jim McDougal
James B. McDougal (August 25, 1940 – March 8, 1998) was a native of White County, Arkansas, and his wife, Susan McDougal (the former Susan Carol Henley), were financial partners with Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton in the real estate venture ...
and
Susan McDougal that quickly went bankrupt. The McDougals were later charged with fraud due to their activities connected to a
savings and loan association
A savings and loan association (S&L), or thrift institution, is a financial institution that specializes in accepting savings deposits and making mortgage and other loans. The terms "S&L" or "thrift" are mainly used in the United States; simi ...
. The July 1993 death of Deputy White House Counsel
Vince Foster
Vincent Walker Foster Jr. (January 15, 1945 – July 20, 1993) was an American attorney who served as deputy White House counsel during the first six months of the Clinton administration.
Foster had been a partner at Rose Law Firm in Lit ...
raised new allegations about the Clintons' connections to the savings and loan associations, marking the start of what became known as the
Whitewater controversy
The Whitewater controversy, Whitewater scandal, Whitewatergate, or simply Whitewater, was an American political controversy during the 1990s. It began with an investigation into the real estate investments of Bill and Hillary Clinton and their as ...
. To defuse allegations stemming from Foster's death, Clinton authorized Attorney General Reno to appoint a
special prosecutor
In the United States, a special counsel (formerly called special prosecutor or independent counsel) is a lawyer appointed to investigate, and potentially prosecute, a particular case of suspected wrongdoing for which a conflict of interest exis ...
under the terms of the
Ethics in Government Act
The Ethics in Government Act of 1978 is a United States federal law that was passed in the wake of the Nixon Watergate scandal and the Saturday Night Massacre. It was intended to fight corruption in government.
Summary
The Ethics in Governme ...
. Later, a special three-judge panel convened and appointed
Ken Starr, a former U.S. solicitor general, as an
independent counsel
The Office of Special Counsel was an office of the United States Department of Justice established by provisions in the Ethics in Government Act that expired in 1999. The provisions were replaced by Department of Justice regulation 28 CFR Part ...
charged with investigating the Whitewater controversy. Starr's investigation expanded beyond Whitewater, in part because of a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against Clinton by
Paula Jones
Paula Corbin Jones (born Paula Rosalee Corbin; September 17, 1966) is an American civil servant. A former Arkansas state employee, Jones sued United States President Bill Clinton for sexual harassment in 1994. In the initial lawsuit, Jones cite ...
, a former Arkansas employee.
[Gormley, pp. 572–575]
In 1998, Starr's office learned that a White House intern,
Monica Lewinsky
Monica Samille Lewinsky (born July 23, 1973) is an American activist and writer. President Bill Clinton admitted to having an affair with Lewinsky while she worked at the White House as an intern in 1995 and 1996. The affair, and its repercus ...
, had engaged in an affair with Clinton. In a deposition related to the Jones lawsuit, Clinton swore under oath that he had not engaged in sexual relations with Lewinsky.
[Gormley, pp. 577–581] Clinton was able to squash rumors of the affair until July 1998, when Starr reached an
immunity
Immunity may refer to:
Medicine
* Immunity (medical), resistance of an organism to infection or disease
* ''Immunity'' (journal), a scientific journal published by Cell Press
Biology
* Immune system
Engineering
* Radiofrequence immunity desc ...
deal with Lewinsky and obtained her confession of the affair. Clinton publicly apologized for having an affair with Lewinsky in September 1998. Though Clinton argued that he had not lied under oath in his answers to the questions asked at the Jones deposition, the House Judiciary Committee began impeachment proceedings against Clinton.
The controversy over Lewinsky enveloped Congress and the presidency, derailing the administration's hopes for reforming Medicare and Social Security. Individuals from both parties were outraged by Clinton's affair with an intern, but many Democrats were mollified by Clinton's repeated public apologies and viewed the reaction from the media and Republicans as disproportionate to the gravity of the affair.
The House passed two articles of impeachment against Clinton. In January 1999, the Senate began the second presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history, after that of
Andrew Johnson. Removal of the president would require a two-thirds vote of the Senate. Clinton was acquitted of the first article by a vote of 45 to convict to 55 to acquit, and acquitted of the second by a vote of 50-50. In 1999, Congress chose not to renew the independent counsel law that had allowed Starr's appointment, meaning that future investigations of a similar nature would be conducted under the oversight of the Justice Department rather than through a judicial panel. Clinton would later publicly acknowledge that he "knowingly gave evasive and misleading answers" in the Jones deposition.
Elections during the Clinton presidency
1994 mid-term elections
A series of controversies, including the debate over gays in the military, contentious confirmation battles, and "
Travelgate
The White House travel office controversy, sometimes referred to as Travelgate,
'' ," sank Clinton's approval ratings to just 37 percent in mid-1993. Further setbacks related to health care and foreign policy left Clinton in a weak position in the lead-up to the
1994 elections
The following elections occurred in the year 1994.
Africa
* 1994 Botswana general election
* 1994 Guinea-Bissau general election
* 1994 Malawian general election
* 1994 Mozambican general election
* 1994 Namibian general election
* 1994 South Af ...
. Led by Newt Gingrich, House Republicans created the
Contract with America
The Contract with America was a legislative agenda advocated for by the Republican Party during the 1994 congressional election campaign. Written by Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey, and in part using text from former President Ronald Reagan's 19 ...
, which promised an overhaul of the federal welfare system and passage of a
balanced budget amendment,
term limits, and deregulation. Republican won control of both chambers of Congress, picking up 54 seats in the House of Representatives and 9 Senate seats. As the victory gave Republicans unified
control of Congress for the first time since 1955, some commentators referred to the 1994 elections as the "
Republican Revolution."
1996 re-election campaign
![ElectoralCollege1996](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/ElectoralCollege1996.svg)
Clinton's handling of the budget and the Bosnian War improved his approval ratings, and his own polling showed him consistently leading Republican challengers throughout 1996. Senate Majority Leader
Bob Dole defeated Pat Buchanan and publisher
Steve Forbes
Malcolm Stevenson Forbes Jr. (; born July 18, 1947) is an American publishing executive and politician who is the editor-in-chief of ''Forbes'', a business magazine. He is the son of longtime ''Forbes'' publisher Malcolm Forbes and the grandso ...
in the
1996 Republican primaries, and Dole was formally nominated at the August
1996 Republican National Convention
The 1996 Republican National Convention convened at the San Diego Convention Center (SDCC) in San Diego, California, from August 12 to August 15, 1996. The convention nominated former Senator Bob Dole from Kansas, for president and former Repres ...
. At the convention, Dole selected conservative former Congressman
Jack Kemp as his running mate and announced that he favored a 15% across-the-board income tax cut. Perot ran for president again, this time as a member of the
Reform Party.
Clinton made a four-day whistle-stop train tour in route to the Democratic convention in Chicago in August. The main theme was centrism. In his acceptance speech Clinton called on the American people to, "help build that bridge to the 21st century for all our children," and avoid Bob Dole's "bridge to the past." He promised more tax cuts and benefits "for the hard-working citizen who plays by the rules." Promising the best is yet to come, he reaffirmed his belief "in a place called Hope, a place called America."
Clinton continued to position himself as a centrist, stating in early 1996 that "the era of Big Government is over." Meanwhile, Dole, one of the oldest major party presidential nominees in history, proved to be an ineffective campaigner. Clinton won by landslides in the popular vote and the Electoral College. Dole performed poorly outside the Mountain states and the South. Clinton built his landslide on the votes of women, African-Americans, Hispanics, younger voters, and retired voters. Dole conceded defeat gracefully and with good humor after nearly a half-century in public office. Turnout was low, at 49%.
Despite Clinton's victory, Republican retained control of the House and the Senate in the 1996
congressional elections. With Republicans in control of Congress, Clinton refrained from proposing major domestic initiatives in his second term. He made a few changes to important positions including
Erskine Bowles
Erskine Boyce Bowles (born August 8, 1945) is an American businessman and political figure from North Carolina. He served from 2005 to 2010 as the president of the University of North Carolina system. In 1997–98 he served as White House Chi ...
as his new Chief of Staff.
Madeleine Albright
Madeleine Jana Korbel Albright (born Marie Jana Korbelová; May 15, 1937 – March 23, 2022) was an American diplomat and political scientist who served as the 64th United States secretary of state from 1997 to 2001. A member of the Democratic ...
became Secretary of State;
William Cohen
William Sebastian Cohen (born August 28, 1940) is an American lawyer, author, and politician from the U.S. state of Maine. A Republican, Cohen served as both a member of the United States House of Representatives (1973–1979) and Senate (1979 ...
, a Republican, became Secretary of Defense;
Anthony Lake
William Anthony Kirsopp Lake (born April 2, 1939) is an American diplomat and political advisor who served as the 17th United States National Security Advisor from 1993 to 1997 and as the 6th Executive Director of UNICEF from 2010 to 2017.
He ha ...
became director of the CIA; and
Sandy Berger
Samuel Richard "Sandy" Berger (October 28, 1945 – December 2, 2015) was an attorney who served as the 18th US National Security Advisor for US President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001 after he had served as the Deputy National Security Adviso ...
became National Security Advisor.
1998 mid-term elections
In the midst of the impeachment hearings, Clinton's approval ratings rose above 65 percent. Polls showed that many in the public did not condone Clinton's relations with Lewinsky, but they did not believe that it was grounds for removal from office. Defying predictions of congressional losses, the Democrats picked up five seats in the House of Representatives; neither party gained seats in the Senate. The election represented the first time since
1934
Events
January–February
* January 1 – The International Telecommunication Union, a specialist agency of the League of Nations, is established.
* January 15 – The 8.0 Nepal–Bihar earthquake strikes Nepal and Bihar with a maxi ...
that the party holding the presidency picked up seats in a mid-term election. Gingrich resigned from office after the elections, and he was succeeded as Speaker of the House by
Dennis Hastert.
2000 elections and transition period
![ElectoralCollege2000](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/ElectoralCollege2000.svg)
The 2000 elections took place on November 7. Clinton was term-limited in 2000 due to the
22nd Amendment
The Twenty-second Amendment (Amendment XXII) to the United States Constitution limits the number of times a person is eligible for election to the office of President of the United States to two, and sets additional eligibility conditions for ...
. Vice President
Al Gore
Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic no ...
dispatched a challenge from Senator
Bill Bradley of New Jersey early in the
2000 Democratic primaries. Gore chose Senator
Joe Lieberman
Joseph Isadore Lieberman (; born February 24, 1942) is an American politician, lobbyist, and attorney who served as a United States senator from Connecticut from 1989 to 2013. A former member of the Democratic Party, he was its nominee for ...
of Connecticut, a prominent intra-party critic of Clinton and the affair with Lewinsky, as his running mate. Texas Governor
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
, the son of former President Bush, won the Republican nomination after defeating Senator
John McCain of Arizona in the
2000 Republican primaries. For his running mate, Bush selected
Dick Cheney, who had served as Secretary of Defense under George H. W. Bush. Pat Buchanan ran as the Reform Party nominee, and he called for a reduction in immigration.
Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader (; born February 27, 1934) is an American political activist, author, lecturer, and attorney noted for his involvement in consumer protection, environmentalism, and government reform causes.
The son of Lebanese immigrants to the U ...
ran as the
Green Party
A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence.
Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation f ...
candidate, winning support from many liberals who were disappointed by the centrist tendencies of Clinton and Gore.
Bush called for major tax cuts, a partial privatization of Social Security, and
school voucher
A school voucher, also called an education voucher in a voucher system, is a certificate of government funding for students at schools chosen by themselves or their parents. Funding is usually for a particular year, term, or semester. In some cou ...
s. He also criticized Clinton for "nation building" in Haiti and other countries, and attacked Clinton's sexual indiscretions. Clinton and Gore had been close political partners for much of Clinton's presidency, but Gore kept his distance from Clinton during the presidential campaign. In the election, Gore won a narrow plurality of the popular vote, taking 48.4 percent to Bush's 47.9 percent and Nader's 2.7 percent. Gore won much of the Northeast, the Midwest, and the Pacific Coast, while Bush dominated the South and the Interior West. However, the winner of the election was unclear on election night, as neither candidate had definitively secured a majority of the electoral vote.
The outcome of the election hinged on Florida, which had endured an extremely close presidential election. Over the ensuing five weeks, both campaigns waged an intense legal battle over election law as Florida conducted a
recount
An election recount is a repeat tabulation of votes cast in an election that is used to determine the correctness of an initial count. Recounts will often take place if the initial vote tally during an election is extremely close. Election reco ...
. The
Supreme Court of Florida unanimously upheld the recount, but the Bush team appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. On December 12, in a
5–4 decision, the Supreme Court ordered an end to the recount, leaving Bush as the winner of Florida and the winner of the election. Bush became the fourth individual in U.S. history, and the first since
1888
In Germany, 1888 is known as the Year of the Three Emperors. Currently, it is the year that, when written in Roman numerals, has the most digits (13). The next year that also has 13 digits is the year 2388. The record will be surpassed as late ...
, to
win the election despite losing the popular vote. Republicans also retained control of the House and the Senate, giving the party unified control of Congress and the presidency for the first time since the
1954 election. Despite the best looking and strong economy in years, Clinton's legacy was overshadowed by Gore's election loss in 2000, however Clinton still left office with 66% approval rating.
Evaluation and legacy
![Galup Poll-Approval Rating-Bill Clinton](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Galup_Poll-Approval_Rating-Bill_Clinton.png)
Polls of historians and political scientists have generally
ranked
A ranking is a relationship between a set of items such that, for any two items, the first is either "ranked higher than", "ranked lower than" or "ranked equal to" the second.
In mathematics, this is known as a weak order or total preorder of ...
Clinton as an above-average president. A 2017
C-SPAN poll of historians ranked Clinton as the 15th best president. A 2018 poll of the
American Political Science Association’s Presidents and Executive Politics section ranked Clinton as the 13th best president.
Clinton's "third way" of moderate liberalism built up the nation's fiscal health, resisted Republican attacks, and put the nation on a firm footing abroad amid globalization and the development of anti-American terrorist organizations.
Addressing Clinton's legacy, Russell L. Riley writes:
Clinton managed to remake the image and operations of the Democratic Party in ways that effectively undermined the so-called Reagan Revolution. His "New Democrat" Party co-opted the Reagan appeal to law and order, individualism, and welfare reform, and made the party more attractive to white middle-class Americans. At the same time, the reborn party retained traditional Democratic commitments to providing for the disadvantaged, regulating the excesses of the private market place, supporting minorities and women, and using government to stimulate economic growth. Moreover, Clinton capitalized on growing dissatisfaction with far right-wing extremism within the Republican Party. Nevertheless, Clinton's claims to a lasting, positive legacy for the Democratic Party have been severely undermined by two realities: the shift in control of Congress to the Republican Party on his watch and the loss by his would-be successor, Vice President Al Gore, in the 2000 presidential election. Thus, Clinton's partisan legacy remains complex and uncertain.
See also
*
Clinton Presidential Center
The William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum is the presidential library of Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States (1993–2001). It is located in Little Rock, Arkansas and includes the Clinton Presidential Library, ...
*
Efforts to impeach Bill Clinton
*
Presidency of Bill Clinton (category)
*
Environmental policy of the United States during the Clinton administration
Notes
References
Works cited
*
*
*
* Leshy, John D. "The Babbitt Legacy at the Department of the Interior: A Preliminary View." ''Environmental Law'' 31 (2001): 199–22
online* Palmer, David. "'What Might Have Been'--Bill Clinton and American Political Power." ''Australasian Journal of American Studies'' (2005): 38-58
online summarizes scholarly studies
*
*
*
*
*
*
Further reading
* Albo, Gregory. "Neoliberalism from Reagan to Clinton." ''Monthly Review'' 52.11 (2001): 81-89, in US
online
* Andelic, Patrick. ''Donkey Work: Congressional Democrats in Conservative America, 1974-1994'' (2019
excerpt* Baker, Peter. ''The Breach: Inside the Impeachment and Trial of William Jefferson Clinton'' (2000)
* Cebul, Brent. "Supply-Side Liberalism: Fiscal Crisis, Post-Industrial Policy, and the Rise of the New Democrats." Modern American History 2.2 (2019): 139-16
online
* Conley, Richard Steven. ''Historical dictionary of the Clinton era'' (2012
online* Congressional Quarterly. ''Congress and the Nation: A Review of Government and Politics. 1993-1996'' (1998) 1275pp
online* Congressional Quarterly. ''Congress and the Nation: Volume 10: 1997-2001'' (CQ Press, 2002
online* Dumbrell, John. ''Clinton's Foreign Policy: Between the Bushes, 1992-2000'' (Routledge, 2009) 228p
excerpt* Frankel, Jeffrey A. and Peter R. Orszag, eds. ''American Economic Policy in the 1990s'' (2002
introduction* Graff, Henry F., ed. ''The Presidents: A Reference History'' (3rd ed. 2002)
*
* Halberstam, David. ''War in a time of peace: Bush, Clinton, and the generals'' (Simon and Schuster, 2001).
* Harris, John F. ''The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House'' (2006)
online* Herrnson, Paul S., and Dilys Hill. ''The Clinton presidency: the first term, 1992-96'' (1999
online*
* MacGinty, Roger. "American influences on the Northern Ireland peace process." ''Journal of Conflict Studies'' 17.2 (1997): 31-5
online
*
* Nelson, Michael, et al. eds. ''42: Inside the Presidency of Bill Clinton'' (Miller Center of Public Affairs Books, 2016)
excerpt als
online an analysis of interviews with insiders on Bosnia, Kosovo, Northern Ireland, and the Middle East.
* Nelson, Michael. ''Clinton's Elections: 1992, 1996, and the Birth of a New Era of Governance'' (2020
excerpt* Perotti, Rosanna, ed. ''Foreign Policy in the Clinton Administration'' (2019)
*
Power, Samantha. ''
A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide'' (2002) covers Bosnia, Kosovo, Srebenica, and Rwanda; Pulitzer Priz
online free to borrow* Renshon, Stanley, ed. ''The Clinton Presidency: Campaigning, Governing, and the Psychology of Leadership'' (2019
excerpt* Walt, Stephen M. "Two Cheers for Clinton's Foreign Policy" ''Foreign Affairs'' 79#2 (2000), pp. 63-7
online
*
* Woodward, Bob. ''The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House'' (1994) on economic policy-making in 1993
excerpt
Primary sources
* Riley, Russell L. ed. ''Inside the Clinton White House: An Oral History'' (2016
excerpt
* Rubinstein, Alvin Z. et al. ''The Clinton Foreign Policy Reader: Presidential Speeches with Commentary'' (M.E. Sharpe, 2000)
External links
Clinton White House archives*
{{Democratic Party (United States)
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1990s in the United States
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