While Bill Clinton was president, the U.S. enjoyed more peace and economic well being than at any time in its history. He was the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second term. He could point to the lowest unemployment rate in modern times, the lowest inflation rate in 30 years, and the highest home ownership in the country's history. He dropped many crime rates in many places, and reduced welfare rolls. He proposed the first balanced budget in decades and achieved a budget raise. As part of a plan to celebrate the millennium in 2000, Clinton called for a great national movement to end racial discrimination.
After the failure in his second year of a huge program of health care reform, Clinton shifted ideas, declaring "the era of big government is over." He thought of legislation to upgrade education, to protect jobs of parents who must care for sick children, to restrict handgun sales, and to strengthen environmental rules.His main idea was to stop all the violence that was goin on in our world.
Clinton was elected Arkansas Attorney General in 1976, and won the governorship in 1978. After losing for a second term, he regained the office four years later, and served until he defeated president's George Bush and third party candidate Ross Perot in the 1992 presidential race.
Clinton and his running mate, Tennessee's Senator Albert Gore Jr., represented a new generation in American political leadership. For the first time in 12 years both the White House and Congress were held by the same party. But that political edge was brief. The Republicans won both houses of Congress in 1994.
In 1998, as a result of issues surrounding personal affairs with a young woman White House intern, Clinton was the second U.S. president to be impeached by the House of Representatives. He was tried in the Senate and found not guilty of the charges brought against him. He apologized to the nation for his actions and continued to have unprecedented popular approval ratings for his job as president.
In the world, he successfully dispatched peace keeping forces to war-torn Bosnia and bombed Iraq when Saddam Hussein stopped United Nations inspections fand evidence of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. He became a global proponent for an expanded NATO, more open international trade, and a worldwide campaign against drug trafficking. He drew huge crowds when he traveled through South America, Europe, Russia, Africa, and China, advocating U.S. style freedom.
