Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

After being governor of Arkansas for the past ten years of his life, he began to become impatient. Clinton had bigger things on his agenda, and he was eager to get started. Clinton was ready to make his high school dream a reality. Clinton announced his intention to seek the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination. In his campaigns outline, a booklet titled A plan for Americas Future, Clinton boldly declared that the future of the nation is in serious jeopardy and that he has suggestions, answers, and solutions to the problems which we face. Clinton had a plan to jump-start our economy in the short-term and a new long-term strategy to turn our countries economy around and restore the American Dream for all.

While Clinton was governor, he was constantly coming up with new ideas, goals, and campaign tactics, just waiting for this moment to put them to use. Clinton didn’t waste a minute to start gaining popularity. Clinton possessed excellent campaigning skills. He had the ability to sharply identify issues in his favor. As most everyone does, Clinton had the tendency to give in to public opinion instead of trying to shape it.

Shortly there after, Clinton was inaugurated as President of the United States in January 1993, after defeating George Bush senior. At 46, he was the youngest U.S. president since John F Kennedy was elected. He won the presidency with 43% of the popular vote and an Electoral College landslide. It goes to show that all of Clinton’s hard work and dedication paid off.

One of the first things that Clinton was faced was dealing with the economic state of the country. Clinton inherited the largest federal budget deficit ever. He then took that debt and turned it right around. Clinton was able to gain back $230 billion. One of Clinton’s biggest goals while being President was to balance the budget. He worked long and hard at it and he also realized that it was going to be a long-term goal. Clinton realized that in order to get the nation back on track, taxes were going to have to be increased and there would have to be many spending cuts in order to achieve the goal at hand.

Another one of Clinton’s top priorities was a new health reform. He was criticized that his proposal would be too expensive. Critics believed that his proposal would lead to government interference in the healthcare system. Clinton soon found out that what he thought would be one of his best presidential accomplishments was turn down.

Although there were a lot of positive things happening, not everything was well. Under Clinton the U.S. had the highest rate of inequality of any industrialized country. In many people’s eyes, Clinton was unwilling to do much to combat the inequality figures. Some of the policies he embraced were designed to reallocate money to working families. But others, such as welfare reform, meant that even less government support was likely for poor people at the bottom of the income distribution.

In the beginning of Clinton’s first term, he was experiencing difficulties regarding foreign policy. Issues concerning Bosnia, Somalia, the former Soviet Union, Haiti, Cuba, North Korea, and Iraq seemed difficult. His lack of experience involving foreign affairs showed when he appeared powerless when it came to establish a reliable U.S. position on foreign politics.

In 1996, President Bill Clinton went up for re-election campaigning against Republican Senator Robert Dole and Independent Ross Perot. After everything was said and done, Clinton eventually came out victorious while receiving 49% of the popular vote. Clinton’s first major task on his agenda of his second term was to reach an agreement with congress on how to achieve a balanced budget. His other goals were still the same as his last term.

In 1994, the Clinton’s seemed to be in some type of scandal. It had to do with an investment that happened in 1978. Bill and Hillary partnered up with a couple of their good friends James and Susan McDougal, who owned a savings and loans company, invested in 220 acres of riverfront land in Arkansas. They were planning to sell the acres individually but plans didn’t turn out as well as they all planned. The expenses grew too much and the partnership ended in 1992. It was believe that the Clinton family lost an