Bill Clinton:  The First Baby-Boomer President

• Democrats nominated Bill Clinton in election of 1992

• Democrats tried new approach which consisted promoting growth, strong defense, and anti-crime policies all while campaigning to stimulate the economy

• Republicans re-nominated George H.W. Bush for president and Danforth Quayle for vice president

• Ross Perot was the third party candidate

• Clinton won the election of 1992 and thus, democrats gained control of both the House and Senate

• Clinton hired minorities and more women in both Congress and his presidential candidate with this including the first female Attorney General and Secretary of Health and Human Services

A False Start for Reform

• Clinton called for accepting homosexuals in the armed forces but had to settle for a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy

• Clinton appointed his wife to revamp the nation’s health and medical care system

• Clinton’s policies led to a budget surplus and shrunk the federal deficit to its lowest levels in ten years by 1998

• A radical Muslim group bombed the World Trade Center in New York, killing six people on February 26, 1993

The Politics of Distrust

• Newt Gingrich led Republicans on an attack of Clinton’s liberal failures with a conservative “Contract with America” in 1994

  • Republicans won 8 more seats in the Senate in that year, along with 53 more seats in the House

• A conservative Congress passed the Welfare Reform Bill which made cuts to welfare programs

• The government shut down in 1995 due to the Congress being unable to agree on a budget

• Clinton beat the Republican candidate in the election of 1996

Clinton Again

• Clinton was more of a political moderate in his second term

• In the 1990s the economy was booming because of the Federal Reserve Board’s low interest rates and the growth of the Internet

• North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was passed in 1993 with it creating a free-trade zone between Mexico, Canada, and the United States which eliminated tariffs between the countries

• World Trade Organization was created in 1994 with it promoting trade between the participating countries which was supported by Clinton

• Clinton fought for two domestic issues during his second term which consisted of the fight against tobacco companies and the fight for gun control

Problems Abroad

• Clinton struggled to develop an American foregin policy which wasn’t centered around fighting communism

• Clinton sent troops to Somalia but eventually withdrew those troops

• Clinton initially criticized China for its human rights abusers and eventually supported China upon coming to the realization that trade with China was important to the U.S.

• Clinton committed American troops to NATO in order to the keep the peace in former, Yugoslavia

• Hopes with peace in the Middle East due to Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination

Scandal and Impeachment

• It was discovered that President Clinton, in 1998, that he had an affair with a White House intern

• Clinton lied about the affair under oath

• House Republicans passed two articles of impeachment against Clinton (perjury before a grand jury and obstruction of justice)

• Senate voted to remove Clinton from office but Republicans failed, in 1999 to obtain the ⅔ majority which was retired

Clinton's Legacy and the 2000 Election

• American economy prospered during Clinton’s era, largely due to the global economic expansion

• Democrats nominated Albert Gore for president while the Republicans nominated George W. Bush

• Bush won, in part due to him being the son of former president George H. W. Bush

• Bush supported returning the federal budget surplus back to the people through tax cuts and giving money to private institutions that could help those in need

• Gore supported smaller tax cuts and strengthening Social Security

• Election was close and Florida's electoral votes would decide who won and for 5 weeks it was uncertain who won Florida's ballots as some were defective or unreadable

• Supreme court eventually ruled that Bush won presidency even though Gore had gotten more popular votes while Bush won more electoral votes

Bush Begins

• Bush strongly opposed welfare programs and environmentalist policies

• Bush rejected Kyoto Treaty which was an international treaty aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions

• Enacted large tax cuts that along with upcoming wars, turned a federal budget surplus into a large budget deficiency

Terrorism Comes to America

• Terrorists hijacked four aircrafts and crashed them into the World Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon, and rural Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001

  • Al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden was responsible for the attack

• Congress passed the Patriot Act in 2001 which expanded government’s ability of monitor citizens’ communication and allowed immigrants suspected of terrorism to be doported

• Congress create the Department of Homeland Security with the purpose of protecting the nation’s borders

• Guantanamo Detention Camp was created on the American military base located in Cuba with the purpose of holding captured Taliban fighters from Afghanistan

• Attacks on September 11 coincided with the beginning of an economic recession

Bush Takes the Offensive Against Iraq

• Bush created the “axis of evil” in January of 2002 which included Iraq, North Korea, and Iran

  • Bush was determined to invade Iraq and overthrow the dictator, Saddam Hussein

  • Bush made a large variety of false claims in his case for war against Iraq, including Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction, Iraq possessing the potential of being a democratic beacon for the Middle East, and that Iraq supported Al Qaeda

• U.S. invaded Iraq on March 19, 2003 with Britain as the U.S.’s only major ally and Hussein was defeated

• Bush made a speech on May 1, 2003, claiming that major combat operations in Iraq were complete

Owning Iraq

• Sectarian violence spread through Iraq

  • There was violence between Sunni and Shia Muslims with Sunnis being the minority and having power under Saddam

• It was discovered in April of 2004 that Iraqi prisoners were being tortured in Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison

Reelecting George W. Bush

• Republicans re-nominated Bush in the election of 2004 while the Democrats nominated John F. Kerry

• Bush supported the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002

  • Mandated sanctions against schools that failed to meet performance standards on a federal level

• Bush supported a constitutional amendment for banning gay marriage and was in opposition of stem cell research

• Won the election

Bush's Second Term

• Bush appointed two new conservative justices to the Supreme Court

• In 2005, it was discovered that the government was wiretapping American citizens’ communications, illegally

• After Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, the Federal Emergency Management Agency responded to the crisis poorly

Midterm Elections of 2006

• Democrats were able to win majorities in the House and Senate in the midterm elections of 2006 due to anti-Republican sentiment

• The majority of the American public opposed the war in Iraq by 2005

• Bush’s approval rating was below 30% by 2005

• Anti-Republican sentiment helped Democrats win majorities in the House and Senate in the midterm elections of 2006.

The Presidential Election of 2008

• Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential nomination for the election of 2008

• Republicans nominated John McCain who had extensive government in the experience while the nominated Republican vice president had none

• A bursting housing bubble and the private banking system’s poor lending practices caused another recession to hit the American economy in 2008 leading to both real estate prices and the stock market plummeted

• Federal government responded by taking over the country’s two largest mortgage companies and taking over the world’s largest insurance company

• Congress passed the Troubled Assets Relief Program to keep the nation’s banks and nations afloat

• Obama won the presidential election of 2008

Obama in the White House

• Obama supported the passage of the American Relief and Recovery Act in order to jumpstart the economy

• The American Relief and Recovery Act was an economic stimulus bill that comprised of tax cuts, spending for jobs programs, and funding for state and local governments

• By 2009, the economy began to recover from the “Great Recession”

• Obama supported a healthcare reform bill in 2010, called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

  • Required all Americans to buy health insurance and prohibited health insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions

• Obama signed the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010 which overtook the nation’s financial regulatory system

A Sea of Troubles

• The “Tea Party” emerged in 2019 as a right-wing, ultra Republican party which was in vehement opposition of the majority of Obama’s policies

• Obama helped repeal the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy in 2010

  • Renewed a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia

Wars, Oil Spills, and Political Backlash

• Obama had withdrawn all American combat troops from Iraq by 2011

• Afghan insurgents made Afghanistan unstable while also making it difficult for American troops to leave

• BP’s Deepwater Horizon platform exploded the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, pouring billions of gallons of oil into the Gulf with this being the worst disaster in American history

• Osama bin Laden was killed by American forces in Pakistan in 2011