Born in Arkansas in 1946, William Jefferson (Bill) Clinton served five terms as Democratic governor of his home state. As governor, Clinton spoke out for equal opportunity, improved education, and economic development. After defeating President George H. W. Bush in 1992, Clinton entered the White House brimming with energy.

However, President Clinton’s first attempt to achieve his goals failed. Against powerful congressional opposition, he backed away from ordering the admission of gays and lesbians into the military, though many already served secretly. Under pressure, the president instead devised the policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” which permitted homosexuals to serve in the armed forces so long as they kept their sexual orientation a secret. Gay service members did not benefit from this compromise and continued to encounter discrimination.

Clinton had even less success in reforming health care. Since President Harry Truman had first proposed a system of universal health care coverage in the 1940s, the American Medical Association and private insurance companies had succeeded in blocking passage of any such plan, despite the general approval of the American public. The Clinton administration recommended a system of universal medical coverage based on “managed competition.” Although Clinton’s plan did not advocate “socialized medicine” (government-run medical care) as many critics charged, the plan was nonetheless defeated.

President Clinton was more successful in achieving other goals, some of which were no less controversial. In 1993, reversing Reagan-Bush policies, Clinton signed executive orders allowing physicians in federally funded clinics to advise patients about abortion, authorizing military hospitals to perform abortions, and funding UN programs that included abortions. Demonstrating that women’s rights were not incompatible with family values, Clinton also approved the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act, which allowed parents to take up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave to care for newborn children without risk of losing their jobs.

Clinton tried to appeal to voters across the political spectrum on other issues. He signed a tough anticrime law that funded the recruitment of an additional 100,000 police officers to patrol city streets, while supporting gun control legislation. Managing to overcome the powerful lobby of the National Rifle Association, in 1993 Clinton signed the Brady Bill, which imposed a five-day waiting period to check the background of gun buyers.

The president achieved even greater success in promoting racial diversity. He appointed African Americans to high-level positions in his cabinet—his selection of four African Americans at one time was unprecedented. His “rainbow administration” welcomed women and minorities to other important posts.

Clinton’s fiscal policies ushered in a period of economic growth and prosperity, which ended the recession of the early 1990s. With congressional support, the president reduced domestic and defense spending by $500 billion, while raising taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations. By the end of the 1990s, the Clinton administration had eliminated the deficit, the gross domestic product was rising 3 percent annually, unemployment dropped from 6 percent to 4 percent, and the stock market reached record highs.

To help the nation’s economy, Clinton embraced the economic regional cooperation witnessed in Europe. In 1993 western European nations formed the European Union (EU), which encouraged free trade and investment among member nations. In 1999 the EU introduced a common currency, the euro, which thirteen nations have adopted. Clinton encouraged the formation of similar economic partnership in North America. In 1993, together with the governments of Mexico and Canada, the U.S. Congress ratified the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The agreement removed tariffs and other obstacles to commerce and investment among the three countries to encourage trade. NAFTA produced noteworthy gains: Between 1994 and 2004, trade among NAFTA nations increased by nearly 130 percent. Although income disparity remains large between Mexico and the United States, Mexico has seen a significant drop in poverty rates and a rise in real income. However, NAFTA has harmed workers in the United States. From 1994 to 2007, net manufacturing jobs dropped by 3,654,000 as U.S. companies outsourced their production to Mexico, taking advantage of its low wage and benefits structure.

Clinton also actively promoted the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO emerged from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, a multilateral agreement fashioned after World War II to encourage tariff reductions and free trade. Created in 1995, the WTO consists of more than 150 nations and seeks “to ensure that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible.” The policies of the WTO generally benefit wealthier nations, such as the United States. From 1978 to 2000, the value of U.S. exports and imports jumped from 17 percent to 25 percent of the gross domestic product.

Despite increasing prosperity and declining national debt, President Clinton’s accomplishments aroused fierce opposition from conservatives. Right-wing talk radio hosts criticized the president and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, a lawyer and leader in the effort to reform health care. Conservatives blamed Clinton for all they considered wrong in society—feminism, abortion, affirmative action, and secularism. Bill Clinton’s personal life also provided ammunition for his opponents. Rumors of marital infidelity hounded him, and questions about his and his wife’s pre-presidential dealings in a controversial real estate development project known as Whitewater prompted the appointment in 1994 of a special prosecutor to investigate allegations of impropriety.

Facing conservative opposition, the president and the Democratic Party fared poorly in the 1994 congressional elections, losing control of both houses of Congress for the first time since 1952. Republicans, led by House Minority Leader Newt Gingrich of Georgia, championed the Contract with America. This document embraced conservative principles, including a constitutional amendment for a balanced budget, reduced welfare spending, lower taxes, and term limits for lawmakers. The election underscored the increasing electoral influence of white evangelical Christians, who voted in large numbers for Republican candidates.

Stung by this defeat, Clinton tried to outmaneuver congressional Republicans by shifting rightward and championing welfare reform. In 1996 he signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. It replaced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children provision of the Social Security law, the basis for welfare in the United States since the New Deal, with a new measure that required adult welfare recipients to find work within two years or lose the benefits provided to families earning less than $7,700 annually. The law also placed a lifetime limit of five years on these federal benefits. Also in 1996, the president approved the Defense of Marriage Act, which denied married same-sex couples the federal benefits granted to heterosexual married couples, including Social Security survivor’s benefits.

In adopting such positions as deficit reduction, welfare reform, and antigay legislation, Clinton angered many of his liberal supporters but he ensured his reelection in 1996. Running against Republican senator Robert Dole of Kansas and the independent candidate Ross Perot, Clinton captured 49 percent of the popular vote and 379 electoral votes. Dole received 41 percent of the vote, and Perot came in a distant third.

Declining support from his liberal base did not seriously undermine President Clinton, but more mundane, sexual indiscretions nearly brought him down. Starting in 1995, Clinton had engaged in consensual sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, a twenty-two-year-old White House intern. Clinton denied these charges under oath and before a national television audience, but when Lewinsky testified about the details of their sexual encounters, the president recanted his earlier statements. After an independent prosecutor concluded that Clinton had committed perjury and obstructed justice, the Republican-controlled House voted to impeach the president on December 19, 1998. However, on February 12, 1999, Republicans in the Senate failed to muster the necessary two-thirds vote to convict Clinton on the impeachment charges.

Despite his impeachment, Clinton left the country in more prosperous shape than he had found it. At the height of the sex scandal in 1998, the unemployment rate fell to 4.3 percent, the lowest level since the early 1970s. The rate of home ownership reached a record-setting 66 percent. As the “misery index”—a compilation of unemployment and inflation—fell, the gross domestic product grew by more than $250 billion. In 1999 the stock market’s Dow Jones average reached a historic high of 10,000 points. That same year the president signed into law a measure that freed banks to merge commercial, investment, and insurance services, prohibited since 1933, giving them enormous leeway in undertaking profitable but risky ventures. The Clinton administration boasted that its economic policies had succeeded in canceling the Reagan-Bush budget deficit, yielding a surplus for the fiscal year 2000. This boom, however, did not affect everyone equally. African Americans and Latinos lagged behind whites economically; and the gap between rich and poor widened as the wealthiest 13,000 American families earned as much income as the poorest 20 million.