#42 Bill Clinton- Economic Boom President

#42 Bill Clinton- Economic Boom President

Clinton got into law before entering politics where he served as Attorney General of Arkansas (1977-1979), and Governor of Arkansas on separate occasions (1979-1981 and 1983-1992).
1993;

• Clinton becomes the 42nd President at the age of 46. Al Gore is his V.P.
• Clinton announces that the First Lady will head the Task Force on National Health Care Reform.
• Clinton signs the Family Medical Leave Act that requires companies to provide workers with up to three months of unpaid leave for family and medical emergencies.
• Six people are killed and more than a thousand suffer injuries after a bomb planted under the World Trade Center in New York City explodes.

1993 WORLD TRADE CENTER BOMBING

• The Senate confirms Janet Reno as attorney general, the first woman to serve in the position.
• In Waco, Texas, federal law enforcement officers, end a 51-day standoff against a religious cult led by David Koresh.

FBI BURNS HOUSE IN WACO STANDOFF

• Clinton orders the U.S. Navy to attack Iraqi intelligence operations in downtown Baghdad after learning that Iraqis had plotted to kill former President Bush during his visit to Kuwait. The twenty-three tomahawk missiles fired reportedly kill eight people.

ANATOMY OF A TOMAHAWK MISSILE

• Clinton announces an “honorable compromise” in the debate surrounding gays in the military. The policy is labeled “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
• Vince Foster, deputy counsel to the President, is found dead in a Northern Virginia park. Authorities rule his death a suicide at first, but it still left many conspiracy theories.
• Clinton signs the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act.
• Clinton presides over a ceremony in Washington, D.C., at which Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat sign the Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles.
• Clinton unveils a plan for universal health care emphasizing that all Americans would have high quality health care and would be able to choose their physicians.
• An elite American special forces unit searching for Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid in Somalia’s capital city of Mogadishu is ambushed by Aidid’s forces, leaving eighteen Americans dead.

• Clinton signs the Brady Act, which requires a potential handgun purchaser to wait five days while a background check is performed by law enforcement officers.
• After a hard-fought battle in Congress, Clinton signs the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), eliminating nearly every trade barrier between the United States, Canada, and Mexico, creating the world’s largest free trade zone.

1994;

• Clinton attends the NATO summit meeting in Brussels, Belgium and announces that the United States will maintain at least 100,000 troops in Europe as well as introducing the “Partnership for Peace” program
• Clinton ends the nineteen-year old trade embargo against Vietnam, noting that Vietnam is trying to locate 2,238 Americans listed as missing in action since the Vietnam War.
• The last American marines leave Somalia.
• Former President Nixon is laid to rest in Yorba Linda, CA

NIXON GRAVE

• Clinton renews China’s Most Favored Nation trade status
• Clinton unveils his welfare reform initiatives.
• Clinton meets with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel and King Hussein of Jordan. The talks result in Israel and Jordan agreeing in principle to end nearly fifty years of official antagonism.

U.S. PRESIDENT CLINTON, ISRAEL PRIME MINISTER RABIN AND KING HUSSEIN OF JORDAN

• Clinton signs the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act into law, that includes provisions providing for the hiring of 100,000 more policemen, and the expansion of the death penalty to cover more than 50 federal crimes.
• The administration announces plans to send more than 35,000 troops to the Persian Gulf to deter an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Days later, Iraqi troops withdraw from border
• The Senate votes to approve the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) that 117 nations, including the United States, agree to in December 1993.
• Clinton, along with the presidents of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine, signs the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) in Budapest, Hungary. The treaty eliminates more than 9,000 warheads.

1995;

• Clinton signs the Congressional Accountability Act, requiring Congress to abide by the same anti-discrimination workplace rules that apply throughout the rest of the country.
• Clinton authorizes the U.S. Treasury Department to make an emergency loan of up to $20 billion to Mexico to forestall a financial crisis threatening the interconnected Mexican and American economies.
• In an act of domestic terrorism, a bomb planted in a truck parked in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, kills 168 people and causes massive structural damage.

OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING

• The United States extended full diplomatic recognition of Vietnam, twenty-two years after the United States withdrew military forces from that country.
• NATO, with a strong contingent of American forces, begins two weeks of air attacks on Serbian positions, dubbed Operation Deliberate Force.

• In Dayton, Ohio, the representatives of Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia agree in principle to a peace agreement, the Dayton Accords

1996;

• Clinton signs a bill giving him the power of the “line-item veto,” which had been requested by Presidents Reagan and Bush. With this new power, Clinton can veto specific items in spending and tax bills without vetoing the entire measure.
• Clinton vetoes a bill that would have outlawed certain types of late-term abortions, namely the partial birth abortion.
• Clinton announces that American troops will likely remain in Bosnia as the major component of an international peacekeeping force for an additional eighteen months.
• In the first trial to result from the Whitewater investigation, Jim and Susan McDougal, and Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker–Clinton’s friends and former business partners in the Whitewater affair–are convicted of fraud.
• Clinton signs a health care reform bill that he expects to expand coverage for many Americans.
• Clinton signs a welfare reform bill that radically restructures the American welfare system.
• Clinton orders a cruise missile strike against Iraq after Saddam Hussein leads a siege against the Kurdish city of Irbil in northern Iraq.

MISSILE STRIKE ON IRAQ

• An overwhelming majority of United Nations members, including the United States, agree to a treaty banning all nuclear weapons testing.

1997;

• The Senate votes 99-0 to approve an investigation into the “improper” and “illegal” fund-raising tactics of both the White House and members of Congress. Allegations by Republicans and some Democrats of illegal fund raising by the Clinton White House spur the investigation
• Clinton and Yeltsin meet at Helsinki, Finland, and agree to begin negotiations on another nuclear arms reduction treaty (START III)
• The Senate ratifies the Chemical Weapons Convention, making illegal the production, acquisition, stockpiling, or use of chemical weapons
• A memorial is dedicated to Franklin D. Roosevelt in Washington D.C.

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL

• The Clinton administration and Republican congressional leaders agree in principle to a five-year budget plan to eliminate the budget deficit.
• In a decision affecting both the scope of presidential power and the immediate future of the Clinton presidency, the Supreme Court rules that Paula Jones can pursue her sexual harassment lawsuit against President Clinton, even while he is in office.
• President Clinton signs legislation providing for a balanced budget by 2002, ending years of partisan wrangling between Clinton and Republican leaders.
• Attorney General Janet Reno, in a letter to Congress, announces that the Justice Department’s investigation into allegations that the Clinton administration violated campaign finance laws, especially in its efforts to finance the 1996 presidential campaign, has uncovered no major violations.
• President Clinton orders the United States government to contribute $3 billion to an international bail-out of Indonesia totaling over $22 billion. The Clinton administration argues that the bailout will help stabilize the shaky financial situation in Southeast Asia.

1998;

• News breaks that President Clinton may have had a sexual relationship with a former White House intern named Monica Lewinsky. Clinton, adamantly denying the allegations, states, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.”
• A judge dismisses Paula Jones’s sexual harassment lawsuit against President Clinton.
• Catholic and Protestant leaders in Northern Ireland sign the “Good Friday Peace Accords,” a substantial agreement in the Northern Ireland peace process.
• Terrorists bomb American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people, including 20 Americans. United States intelligence believes that Osama bin Laden is behind the attacks.

AMERICAN EMBASSY BOMBING IN KENYA

• The Office of the Independent Counsel releases its report on the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, commonly known as the Starr Report.
• After nine days of negotiations in rural Maryland, Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat sign the Wye River Memorandum. President Clinton mediates the negotiations, which result in an agreement highlighted by a three-stage withdrawal of Israeli troops from the West Bank.

• President Clinton orders a three-day bombing attack against Iraq after Saddam Hussein refuses to cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors.

BOMBING OF IRAQ

• The House of Representatives votes to impeach President Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.

1999;

• The Senate acquits President Clinton on both articles of impeachment, rejecting one article and splitting evenly on the second.
• In response to Serbian aggression in Kosovo and Albania, and reports of ethnic cleansing, the United States leads NATO attacks against Serbia.

NATO BOMBING

• The NATO air campaign against Serbia ends after Serb forces agree on June 9 to withdraw from Kosovo.
• The United States Senate votes down the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which would have prevented the United States from conducting underground nuclear tests.

2000;

• The United States and China agree to a trade treaty reducing tariffs and other trade barriers. The treaty is to come into effect after China joins the World Trade Organization
• Clinton sends a bill to Congress asking for permanent normal trade relations with China.
• Clinton holds a summit meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin. They reaffirm their nations’ commitment to strategic arms reductions, but disagree over American plans to research and develop a missile-defense system.
• Independent Counsel Robert Ray announces that his investigation has not discovered enough evidence to indict the Clintons for their Whitewater dealings.

Since Clinton left office he has been involved in public speakings and humanitarian work as well as remaining active in politics by campaigning for Democratic Presidential nominees, most recently, his wife running in 2016.

Famous quotes;

“There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.”

“Let us all take more responsibility, not only for ourselves and our families but for our communities and our country.”

“Sometimes when people are under stress, they hate to think, and it’s the time when they most need to think.“