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Sidney Teach

Eric Ratica

Computer Applications

26 October 2017

Was Bill Clinton a Successful President?

“The future is not an inheritance, it is an opportunity and an obligation” (google.com).

This is one of the most famous quotes that Bill Clinton, our former president, once said. Bill

Clinton became the forty-second President of the United States at the age of 46. He was the

third youngest person to ever become president and he was inaugurated on January 20, 1993

and served from 1993 to 2001. He served alongside his Vice President, Al Gore.

(Biography.com). During his time as a President, there were many ups and downs, but this is

not an uncommon occurrence with the presidents. They all have their high and low points, but is

the high points that determine if they were successful. To be a successful president, they must

have had a positive impact on the areas that include, the military, education, and the economy.

Former president Bill Clinton had a major positive impact on the economy during his

time. It is said that he had the longest economic expansion in American history. It is because,

“The President’s strategy of fiscal discipline, open foreign markets, and investments in the

American people helped create the conditions for a record 115 months of economic expansion”

(National Archives and Records Administration ). Bill Clinton also created 6 million new jobs in

his first two years of his term. That is an average of 250,000 new jobs very month. By the end of

his presidency, more than 22 million jobs were created. That is the most ever under a single

administration (Perkel). In terms of the economy, he paid off $360 billion dollars of the national

debt and he also converted the largest budget deficit in American history to one of the largest

surplus (National Archives and Records Administration ). Therefore, because he was President,
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“We began the new century with over 20 million new jobs, the fastest economic growth in more

than 30 years, the lowest unemployment rates in 30 years, the lowest poverty rates in 20 years,

the lowest African-American and Hispanic unemployment rates on record, the first back-to-back

in 42 years” (Hayden, 122). Alongside with his booming economy, Bill Clinton also improved our

education system.

During Bill Clinton’s presidency, he positively impacted our education system. Mr.

Clinton made education a priority. He signed into law the Goals 2000 program which

established a national standard of excellence for public schools. It distributed two billion dollars

to set the uniform standards in schools (Perkel). He also created the Improving Americas

schools Act (IASA) which required that the accountability and standard be the same for every

student, even disadvantaged students (Bill Clinton- ProCon.org). Another impression he had, is

that he connected internet to 95 percent of schools in the United States. Before Clinton, only 35

percent of schools had internet. This was a huge step into improving the education system. On

the lines of college, he had the largest expansion college opportunities since the GI Bill. Bill

Clinton and his Vice President Gore almost doubled the financial aid for students. This was all

made possible because they increased the Pell Grants which then expanded Federal work-

study to allow one million students to work their way through college. They also created new tax

credits and scholarships (National Archives and Records Administration ). On the same note as

enhancing our education system, Bill Clinton also certainly restored our defense.

The president plays a huge role in our defense system. Whether that be within our

country like the police or out of our country like our military. Within the United States, Bill Clinton

had the lowest crime rate in 26 years! That was made possible by his tough penalties, smart

prevention, and more police. Bill added 100,000 more police to the streets and enacted a huge

gun safety legislation. This allowed for the overall rate of crime to decline to the lowest level

since 1973 (National Archives and Records Administration ). Clinton also modernized the US

military by adding precision weapons and the use of GPS technology. This all lead to lower
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casualty rates, advanced communications, and lower collateral damage (Bill Clinton-

ProCon.org). In terms of foreign defense, Bill played an important role in created the peace

process in Northern Ireland. He also helped get the Soviet nations to give up their nuclear

arsenals and sent 20,000 American military persons to enforce peace in the region. This did not

result in any American casualties. A gigantic portion of Clinton’s presidency was working with

NATO which was a military alliance between North America and Europe, to bomb Serbia. This

was all done to end Slobodan Milosevic’s ethnic cleansing campaign (Bill Clinton- ProCon.org).

In the book titled, “The President We Deserve”, it stats, “If all these new pacts develop as

planned, Clinton is likely to go down in history as the true architect of the post-cold war”

(Walker, 286)

In the end, Bill Clinton’s presidency left a positive impact on America. He improved the

United States tremendously. His presidency may have been controversial, but you cannot argue

that he did good things for America. He had one of the best economies in the history of America

and he dealt with tough foreign policies and treaties! He also improved the education system

and created a national standard of excellence. Therefore, Bill Clinton’s presidency was a

success.
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Works Cited

Bill Clinton- ProCon.org. n.d. 16 October 2017.

Biography.com. 12 December 2016. 12 October 2017.

Hayden, Joseph. Covering Clinton . Praeger Publishers, 2002.

National Archives and Records Administration . Janurary 2001. 13 October 2017.

Perkel, Marc. The Clinton Record- Clinton's Accomplishments . n.d. 13 October 2017.

Walker, Martin. The President We Deserve. New York: Crows Publishers, 1996.