The Bill Clinton Years in the White House - Research Paper Example

Bill Clinton Bill Clinton was the best president in the past 50 years. William Jefferson Bill Clinton was born August 19, 1946. He is a distinguished USA politician and served as the 42nd President of USA from 1993 – 2001 (Chris, 1). At the age of 46, he became inaugurated and thus, considered among the youngest presidents in the USA history. He ascended to the presidency in the last days of Cold War and thereafter became the first president to come from the baby boomer generation. Many people consider him as a New Democrat. The New Democrats championed for smaller governments as well as welfare reform and had support from Republicans and Democrats. Moreover, Americans attribute his policies to a centrist Third Way philosophy of power. His charm and power to pull people to his side enabled him achieve his dream of guiding America to prosperity through promotion of peace and introducing laws that changed America. Bibliography Clinton was born in 1946 of William Jefferson Blythe, Jr. and Virginia Dell Cassidy (Clinton, 3). His father died in an automobile accident when Virginia was 6 months pregnant. His mother left him under the care of his grandparents in order to study nursing. Virginia later remarried to Roger Clinton, a brother to her late husband. Roger was an alcoholic and gambler who frequently behaved violently to his mother and stepbrother. At times, he came to the defense of the mother when his stepfather abused her. Despite such treatment, he adopted his stepfathers’ name, Clinton as a sign of gesture to him. He grew up in Arkansas where he became a skilled musician, rugby player as well as a student leader at Georgetown University. Moreover, Clinton forms part of alumni of Georgetown University and became an associate of Kappa Kappa Psi and Phi Beta Kappa where he earned a scholarship to the University of Oxford (Clinton, 7). Despite having passion for medicine, he never achieved it but instead opted to study law at Yale Law School. Furthermore, he is married to Hillary Clinton who has served as US Secretary of State since 2009 and a former New York Senator from 2009 – 2009. The Clintons met and dated at Yale Law School where they received their law degrees. The couple has one child, Chelsea. She has been a source of happiness and hope in their lives. He is a Christian and a Baptist. His major achievement as Governor of Arkansas was the overhaul of the education system, which led to increased performance and accountability. He also became Chair of the National Governors association (Clinton, 15) Achievements Clinton became USA president after defeating the incumbent president George H. W Bush. He rode on the wave of economic growth to power since the incumbent had performed dismally in promoting economic growth. During his years as president, he reigned over the longest era of peacetime economic growth and development (IMDb, 1). During his era, peace was paramount and this provided a favorable environment for economic expansion. This resulted in growth and expansion of the US economy after poor performance under his predecessor George H. W. Bush. Moreover, he assented into law The North American Free Trade Agreement that expanded US trade market and partners. This contributed to the economic boom since US products recorded massive sales as well as provision of favorable business environment (IMDb, 1). Therefore, US traders experienced minimal problems concerning trade policies and regulations with the North American trade partners. Immediately after being inaugurated as president, Clinton accented to the Family and Medical Leave Act, 1963. The law provided for employers to give employees unpaid leave for serious medical condition or pregnancy (Joseph, 12). This Act was significant and got a majority public approval since it helped many people to pay bills and meet other expenses while not on work. Through the Act, Clinton helped reduced financial problems and constraints experienced by the sick or pregnant women and thus, considered the best president. Consequently, Clinton signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, 1963, which cut taxes on fifteen million low rated income families while raising taxes on the wealthiest (Joseph, 22). This lowered the financial burden on the poor while making the rich pay for the deficit, thus balancing the economy. Consequently, Bill Clinton implemented the Don’t Ask, don’t tell policy, which despite being controversial provided a transitional step towards full gay military incorporation (Joseph, 25). This reduced biasness and discrimination against the gay community and thus highly regarded among the gays. Further, he won his full term re-election in 1996, thus becoming the second Democrat to win reelection since Franklin Roosevelt. In addition, Clinton passed welfare reform as well as the State Children’s Health Insurance (Joseph, 27). These reforms ensured provision of health coverage to many children across America. Provision of health care to millions of children whose parents cannot afford and thus helped improve the health as well as the social well being of the kids, thus ensuring a healthy and disease free children society. Moreover, there was a reduction in the number of children suffering from various diseases, thus, shielding parents from the burden of providing health care services to their kids. Therefore, parents had little stress about the health and safety of their children since heath services were provided free of charge by the state. This step boosted Clinton’s image and overall rating among Americans as a caring and mindful president. However, as a human being, he got involved in some problems where he was impeached for obstruction of justice in a scandal involving him and an intern in the Whitehouse (Meacham, 78). According to the sex scandal, Clinton had given false information concerning his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Moreover, his tribulations never ended since he got impeached for perjury. Despite of such accusations and scandals, the U. S Senate acquitted him, thus enabling him serve the full presidency term (Meacham, 79). During Clinton’s reign, the Congressional Budget Office posted a budget surplus from 1998 – 2000, years when Clinton was the sitting president (Pierce & Warren, 64). This assisted in displaying his outstanding performance as the U. S president. A lot of economic growth was witnessed during Clinton’s era due to the prevailing peaceful environment. Unlike during his successor’s reign, America was a peaceful country and a country of several cultures that interacted and worked together. His international policies improved US relations with the rest of the world. He never isolated or discriminated any country based on race, religion, or color, thus contributing to the peaceful nature of America. At one time, he brought the Israel Prime minister, Ehud Barak and the late Palestinian leader; Yasser Arafat to reach a consensus on peace deal in the Middle East between the two fierce rivals (Pierce & Warren, 64). These enhanced trade relations as well as discourage acts of terrorism since he employed diplomacy and not confrontational leadership in solving world problems. Consequently, his policies improved the US relations with the Islam states, thus reducing bad or cold relationship between the West and the Middle East countries. Clinton left Whitehouse having the highest public approval rating of all the presidents since World War II. This was because of his practical policies and laws, which he implemented to push USA to higher economic growth and prosperity compared to his predecessor after the World War II (Rumsch, 12). Moreover, many USA citizens regard Clinton as the best US president in history since after leaving office; he has concentrated in assisting the less fortunate in the society. He established the William J. Clinton Foundation, a philanthropic organization with the aim of addressing international problems for instance prevention and control of HIV/ AIDS as well as global warming (Clinton Foundation, 1). These problems pose a threat to human well being, thus the reason for the establishment of the foundation. Moreover, after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, in collaboration with Bush they established Clinton Bush Haiti Fund to provide financial assistance to the victims of the catastrophe. Moreover, despite leaving presidency, he still concentrates in politics; for instance, he campaigned for his wife during the 2008 Democratic Party nominations, campaigned for president Obama’s election in 2008 and his re- election in 2012 ( Clinton, 15). USA has had many presidents in history and some considered to have performed above others. Of those presidents, Bill Clinton emerges the best. Despite his outstanding performance, his face does not show on Mount Rushmore nor have a monument with his name in the USA capital Washington DC. However, is name is highly regarded and can be compared with precious stones such as bronze as well as stone statues. According to the Gallup poll released to the run up to the 2012 US presidential election, 69% of the respondents rated him highly, higher than even those his days as president. This kind of rating is attributed to his performance and policies that spurred America to greater economic rise. Therefore, he will forever be remembered for guiding America to prosperity during peaceful time that provided an enabling environment for economic growth. His hard work and determination to change America will forever live with us. Works Cited Chris Cilliza. THE FIX. Retrieved 09. 12. 2012 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the- fix/wp/2012/09/06/is-bill-clinton-one-of-the-best-presidents-in-history/ Clinton, Bill. My Life: 2. New York: Vintage books, 2005. Print. Clinton Foundation. Retrieved 09. 12. 2012 from http://www.clintonfoundation.org/ IMDb. Bill Clinton. Retrieved 09. 12. 2012 from http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001051/ Joseph, Paul. Bill Clinton. Edina, Minn: Abdo Publishing Company, 2001. Print. Meacham, Jon. "Bill Clinton." Newsweek 154.26 (2009): 78-83. Pearce, Matt. "Bill Clinton." Our States: Arkansas (2011): 1. Pierce, Charles P.Warren, Mark. "BILL CLINTON 79 THINGS WE CAN ALL AGREE ON. (Cover Story)." Esquire 157.2 (2012): 64. Rumsch, BreAnn(a). Bill Clinton. Edina, Minn: ABDO Pub. Co, 2009. Print. The Whitehouse Washington. Retrieved 09. 12. 2012 from http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/williamjclinton Read More