For youth voters who have watched the Bush presidency for the last seven years, there is a common conception that if only we could return to the Clinton presidency everything in America would be better.
However, for most of us who were barely aware of politics in the ’90s, it would be a good idea to understand what actually happened during the Clinton years.
Thinking Clinton’s presidency never faced any problems without truly studying it would be like trying to explain history without ever picking up a textbook; both would be very irresponsible. Thus, in the search for truth, I thought it best to examine the Clinton years from the perspective of a history student instead of a partisan.
In light of the current campaign, I decided to actually examine the Clinton presidency, and have found that perhaps the Clinton years, while nowhere near as bad as the last seven years, were not ones that I would necessarily want have back. Overall, I feel this examination was for my benefit.
“If young people are revisiting the Clinton administration to get a realistic view of it and realizing that it was not a land of milk and honey, then that is a good thing,” said political science professor Phil Gussin.
Either way, this kind of reexamining of the Clinton years, or rather the first-time critical examination, makes sense right now in light of the current election, since Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., is a candidate.
“Hillary Clinton is in part running on her experience, and that includes Bill Clinton’s years,” said political science professor Joel Aberbach. “It makes sense that people would examine the Clinton years in response.”
For instance, as is often talked about, within its first year, the Clinton administration failed to get its health-care-reform package passed by Congress. The policy failed to get enough support in Congress even from Democrats and eventually became a blow to Clinton’s first term in office.
Soon after this defeat, the 1994 mid-term elections were held, and the Republican Party was able to take control of the House of Representatives giving the GOP control of Congress for the first time since 1954. While of course the blame for this event cannot only be placed on Bill Clinton, it is somewhat the president’s political job to keep his party in control of Congress. When the Republicans lost control of Congress in 2006 many people placed the blame on the dislike that the country had for President Bush.
Then in 1996, Congress, with the president’s support, passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. The act allowed states to decide who was eligible for welfare instead of leaving the decision up to the government. Specifically, the reform gave states financial incentive to reduce the amount of people that a state had on welfare.
While some may view this as a positive step in welfare reform, it is not a policy that I would at all favor, and upon learning that the Clinton administration supported this legislation, I truly rethought whether I would want someone who signed it into law in the White House.
Call me a bleeding heart liberal but I do not trust that some states wouldn’t simply change welfare criteria to exclude people from welfare benefits.
Also in 1996, Clinton signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act, which allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriage and also explicitly defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Realizing that Clinton signed this legislation into law shocked me in that this policy seems like a law our current president would support. Although, coupled with the fact that he also supported the “don’t ask don’t tell” military policy on homosexuality, maybe I was wrong to be surprised.
Despite all of this, the Clinton presidency was certainly a better time for America than the last seven years have been. Where Clinton might have failed on welfare reform or same-sex marriage policy, his administration never trampled on the civil liberties of the citizens of this country as the current administration has with its NSA wire tapping policies. Furthermore, Clinton left office with a surplus of $127 billion while in 2005 the Bush administration had already run up a deficit of $319 billion.
If that’s not enough, Clinton’s presidency saw the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years, the lowest crime rate in 26 years, and the biggest step in gun safety legislation the country had seen in years.
“Clinton’s presidency was more successful than Bush’s has been,” Aberbach said. “Just look at how high Clinton’s popularity was when he left office compared to Bush’s approval rating, and look at the budget figures under Bush and Clinton.”
While I might have come away from this examination with a far different view of the Clinton years, this kind of analysis is needed more than ever today, for we can only truly move forward as a country once we understand our past.
In no sense of the word was the Clinton administration perfect, and certainly the Bush years have been anything but. However it is also very helpful to understand the relative success of certain presidencies verses others; indeed, without an understanding of past presidencies, we will never be able to rightly assess future ones.
Contact Margolis at mmargolis@media.ucla.edu if you want to return to 1998. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.