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Oct 6, 2020 · Bill Clinton grew up in Arkansas and lived between Hope and Hot Springs. For his first four years, he lived in Hope, AR, with his grandparents, and then moved to Hot Springs, AR, in 1950 with his mother. Read more below about Clinton’s entrancing childhood, including the extracurriculars he participated in at school that led to a passion for ...
Bill Clinton — America's 42nd president — grew up in an extended family of modest means, but one rich with storytellers. "All my life I've been interested in other people's stories," he wrote ...
Jul 31, 2023 · Growing up without his father proved to be challenging for Bill Clinton. He was born three months after his father's accident in Hope, Arkansas, a small town lying in the southwest corner of the state (via Arkansas Heritage). Clinton's mother Virginia named him William Jefferson Blythe after his deceased father, who would continue to define the ...
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- Overview
- Bill Clinton’s rise to power
- Clinton’s first term (1993-1997)
- Clinton’s second term (1997-2001)
- What do you think?
Read about Clinton's domestic policies and scandal-ridden second term.
Bill Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III in Hope, Arkansas in 1946 but formally adopted his stepfather’s surname, Clinton, when he was fifteen years old. He attended Georgetown University and was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford before going on to earn his law degree at Yale. He served one term as Attorney General of the state of Arkansas and was elected governor in 1978.
Frequently referred to as the “Boy Governor” because of his young age (he was 32 years old), Clinton enacted reforms in the areas of education, welfare, and healthcare. He was reelected in 1982 and became a leader of the New Democrats, a centrist wing of the Democratic Party that sought to decrease the size and scope of the federal government—a goal to which progressives and liberals were vehemently opposed.
Bill Clinton came to the White House with an ambitious domestic agenda centered on economic growth. He immediately set to work reducing the federal budget deficit. The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, known unofficially as the Deficit Reduction Act of 1993, raised taxes for the wealthiest 1.2 percent, while cutting taxes for small businesses and lower-income wage earners. The legislation included a requirement to balance the federal budget, and set the stage for an economic resurgence that culminated in a federal budget surplus.
The Clinton administration proved less successful in the realm of healthcare reform. Although implementing a national health care plan with universal coverage was a top priority for Clinton, opposition from Republicans, the American Medical Association, and the health insurance industry proved an insurmountable obstacle to healthcare reform.
Although Bill Clinton easily won reelection in 1996, his second term in office was marred by corruption and scandal. Clinton became the second president in US history to be impeached, after he was discovered to have lied to Congress and the American people about his involvement in an extramarital affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Though the House of Representatives charged Clinton with perjury and obstruction of justice, the Senate vote, which was largely along party lines, did not attain the two-thirds majority required by the US Constitution to remove him from office.2
[Learn more about the impeachment process]
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[Notes and attributions]
Higher Incomes even after Taxes and Inflation: Real after-tax incomes have grown for Americans at all income levels, much faster than they did prior to the Clinton-Gore Administration. Real after-tax incomes grew by an average of 2.6 percent per year for the lower-income half of taxpayers between 1993 and 1997, while growing by an average of 1. ...
Mar 21, 2023 · A viral March 18 Instagram post featured photos of Clinton and Jones and said, "Bill Clinton paid Paula Jones $850,000 to go away. I don’t remember them raiding his lawyer’s office."
Clinton countered that free trade would help America because it would allow the U.S. to boost its exports and grow the economy. Clinton also believed that free trade could help move foreign nations to economic and political reform. The Clinton administration negotiated a total of about 300 trade agreements with other countries.
