Budget Clinton proposed a $16 billion stimulus package primarily to aid inner-city programs desired by liberals, but it was defeated by a Republican filibuster in the Senate.
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 Clinton inherited major budget deficits left over from the
Reagan and
Bush administrations; fiscal year 1992 had seen a $290 billion deficit. In order to cut the deficit, Bentsen, Panetta, and Rubin urged Clinton to pursue both tax increases and spending cuts. They argued that by taming the deficit, Clinton would encourage Federal Reserve Chairman
Alan Greenspan to lower interest rates, which, along with increased confidence among investors, would lead to an economic boom. Some of Clinton's advisers also believed that a focus on cutting the deficit would be politically beneficial since it would potentially help Democrats shed their supposed "tax and spend" reputation. Though Secretary of Labor
Robert Reich argued that stagnant earnings represented a bigger economic issue than the deficits, Clinton decided to pursue deficit reduction as the major economic priority of his first year in office. In doing so, he reluctantly abandoned a middle-class tax cut that he had championed during the campaign. Clinton presented his budget plan to Congress in February 1993, proposing a mix of tax increases and spending reductions that would cut the deficit in half by 1997. Republican leaders strongly opposed any tax increase, and they pressured congressional Republicans to unite in opposition to Clinton's budget, and not a single Republican would vote in favor of Clinton's proposed bill. Senate Democrats eliminated the implementation of a new
energy tax in favor of an increase in the
gasoline tax, but Clinton successfully resisted efforts to defeat his proposed expansion of the
earned income tax credit. By narrow margins, the Senate and the House of Representatives both passed versions of Clinton's budget bill, and a conference committee settled the differences between the House and Senate. The House passed the final bill in a 218–216 vote. After intensely lobbying
Bob Kerrey and other Democratic senators, Clinton won passage of his bill in the Senate in 50–50 tie vote; Vice President Gore
broke the tie. Clinton signed the
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 (OBRA–93) into law on August 10, 1993. The bill provided for $255 billion in spending cuts over a five-year period, with much of those cuts affecting Medicare and the military. It also provided for $241 billion in new revenue over five years; most of that revenue came from an increased gasoline tax or from higher taxes on those who made over $100,000 per year.
Government shutdowns After Republicans took control of Congress in the 1994 elections, incoming
Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich promised a conservative "revolution" that would implement tax cuts, welfare reform, and major domestic spending cuts. Gingrich failed to deliver major conservative reforms in the first hundred days of the
104th Congress, but many observers continued to wonder if the Speaker would seize stewardship over domestic policy from the office of the president. Meanwhile, with conservatism on the rise and
New Deal liberalism in retreat, Clinton hoped to forge a new consensus that did not totally reject government interventionism. In reaction to his party's electoral defeat, Clinton hired consultant
Dick Morris, who advocated that Clinton pursue a policy of
triangulation between conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats. By co-opting some of Republican ideas, Morris argued that Clinton could boost his own popularity while blocking the possibility of the drastic reforms advocated by some conservatives. The Republican Congress presented Clinton with a budget plan that cut
Medicare spending and instituted major tax cuts for the wealthy, giving him a November 14, 1995, deadline to approve the bill. After the deadline, the government would be forced to temporarily shut down due to a lack of funding. In reaction, Clinton presented his own plan that did not include spending cuts to Medicare but would balance the budget by 2005. As Clinton refused to sign the Republican bill, major portions of the government suspended operations until Congress enacted a stopgap measure. The government shut down again on December 16 after Clinton vetoed a Republican budget proposal that would have extended tax cuts to the wealthy, cut spending on social programs, and shifted control of Medicaid to the states. After a 21-day government shutdown, Republicans, in danger of being seen as extremists by many in the public, accepted Clinton's budget.
Line item veto Clinton secured passage of the
Line Item Veto Act of 1996, becoming the first president to obtain that power although many had sought it. Its effect was very brief as the act was soon ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in
Clinton v. City of New York.
Budget surplus Combined with a strong economy, the 1993 deficit reduction plan produced smaller budget deficits each year. With the improving state of the federal budget, Clinton and congressional Republicans reached a budget agreement in 1997 that provided for relatively small changes to the budget. In 1998, the federal government experienced the first budget surplus since the 1960s. Reflecting the importance of the budget surplus, the
New York Times described the end of budget deficits as "the fiscal equivalent of the fall of the Berlin Wall." Though Republican leaders called for large tax cuts in light of the budgetary surplus, Clinton successfully resisted any major budgetary changes in the last three years of his term. In 1997, Clinton agreed to a deal with Republicans that lowered the tax rate on capital gains to 20 percent, implemented a $500 child tax credit, increased funding for children's health care, and raised the federal
cigarette tax from 24 cents per pack to 39 cents per pack. Republicans did, however, block some of Clinton's favored policies, including an increase of the federal
minimum wage and legislation designed to provide free prescription drugs to seniors.
Health care 1993 health care plan When Clinton took office, approximately twenty percent of American adults lacked health insurance, despite the fact that the United States spent more on health care than other
developed countries. Many liberals advocated the establishment of a
single-payer healthcare system similar to that of
Canada, while a group of congressional Republicans developed a plan consisting of government subsidies and the implementation of a
mandate that would require individuals to purchase health insurance. The administration formed a task force, led by First Lady
Hillary Clinton, that was charged with creating a plan that would provide for
universal health care. Assigning a major policy role to the First Lady was unprecedented and sparked controversy. Rejecting calls for a single-payer system, she proposed a health care plan based on the extension of employer-based health insurance. Individuals not insured by employers would be insured by the government. The plan would also expand the government's regulatory role in a concept known as "managed competition", with the government setting a minimum level of benefits that each plan could provide. Additionally, the plan would prevent insurers from charging different rates to customers based on age and
pre-existing conditions. After winning the passage of OBRA–93 and the ratification of NAFTA in 1993, the President made health care his major area of legislative focus in 1994. Though many corporations supported Clinton's health care proposal in hopes of reducing their own costs, several other groups strongly objected to the plan. Liberals criticized Clinton for not proposing more far-reaching reforms, while conservatives attacked the expansion of government. Interest groups ran ad campaigns alleging that the Clinton health care bill would lead to
health care rationing, reduced choices, and increased costs. The
Health Insurance Association of America's "
Harry and Louise" ad campaign proved especially important in influencing the public against the Clinton health care bill. Meanwhile, Congressmen
Newt Gingrich and columnist
Bill Kristol convinced congressional Republicans to resist any form of compromise. Clinton's decision not to engage congressional Democrats and moderate Republicans early in 1993, and his own refusal to compromise on various aspects of the bill, further damaged any hope of passing a major health care bill. With Republicans unified against his plan, and with his own party divided, Clinton decided to abandon health care reform in September 1994.
Other health care legislation Within a month of taking office, Clinton signed the
Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993. The act, which had been vetoed twice by Bush, guaranteed workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid medical leave for certain medical and family reasons, including pregnancy. In August 1996, Clinton signed the
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The bipartisan bill granted people the right to keep their insurance plan if they changed jobs, and also contained several other health care reforms. In October 1996, Senator
Ted Kennedy introduced a bill to provide health care coverage for children of the working poor, to be financed via a 75 cents a pack cigarette tax increase. Working with Clinton and Republican senator
Orrin Hatch, Kennedy won passage of the
Children's Health Insurance Program, which in turn was designed by Hillary Clinton, as a section of the
Balanced Budget Act of 1997.
Health care proposals On January 6, 1998, Clinton unveiled a plan to expand
Medicare so that it functioned as a "buy-in" program for early retirees, displaced workers and workers who lost their employer-based health insurance coverage, who are over fifty-five years of age but under the sixty-five year age requirement for standard Medicare coverage. People aged 62-64 would be able to pay a fixed premium of an estimated $300 per month for Medicare insurance under this plan, while laid-off workers and workers who lost employer-based insurance would be able to purchase Medicare coverage if they are between 55-62 years of age, although they would have to pay the full premium. Early retirees could still purchase health insurance coverage through their former jobs until they are old enough to receive Medicare, compared to only for eighteen months under the
Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985. However, this plan was met with chilly reception from congressional Republicans, who believed that it would be too expensive to administer, and that it was apart of a stepwise plan to enact his failed universal healthcare agenda without explicit congressional approval, among other questions about Medicare's long-term solvency.
Welfare reform The successful passage of welfare reform in the 1990s was President Clinton's strategy of "triangulation"-purposely positioning himself midway between liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans, thereby building a majority coalition and enabling him to take full credit for the results. The strategy was called "
triangulation". Shortly after the end of the government shutdown, Clinton announced his plan to pursue major changes to the
Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, which provided financial assistance to low-income families with children. Clinton believed that the program inadvertently trapped many poor families and individuals in a
cycle of poverty, an argument shared by many Democrats, and he favored shifting funding from AFDC to job training and
child care programs. Republicans shared Clinton's goal of making major changes to the welfare system, but they were unwilling to fund the job training programs and wanted to prevent legal immigrants from receiving welfare benefits. Clinton twice vetoed Republican plans that terminated AFDC, with one of these plans, H.R. 4, being vetoed because he believed that it failed to provide adequate protections for child care and healthcare, and provided little incentive for states to move welfare recipients to work, while capping year-over-year federal funding increases for nutritional assistance programs through
SNAP. These issues were resolved after months of negotiation, though he wasn't satisfied with the end-product however; despite being more conservative than what he desired, he ultimately decided that he favored the Republican reform plan over no reform at all, and a third veto would've been politically damaging in an election season dominated by a theme of welfare reform. In July 1996, after months of renegotiation, Clinton signed the
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, which terminated AFDC. In its place, the bill created the
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, which imposed new work requirements for and lifetime limits on aid recipients, and shifted responsibility for the administration of the programs to the states. Due in part to the improving economy and the expansion of the earned income tax credit, the number of Americans receiving cash public assistance declined from 12.2 million in 1996 to 5.3 million in 2001. Commentators have sometimes speculated that Clinton's emphasis on entrepreneurship and the post-industrial sector was the co-option of conservative ideas first presented by Reagan Republicans in the 1980s. However Brent Cebul argues that triangulation represented a traditional liberal effort to structure the economy with the goals of creating new jobs, and producing fresh tax revenues that can support progressive policy innovations. This tradition goes back to the local and state policies inspired by the New Deal, and the "supply-side liberalism" of the 1970s.
Other welfare In 1993 substantive changes were made to food stamps while the HUD Demonstration Act of 1993 authorized several demonstrations, including "an Innovative Homeless Initiatives Demonstration program, the section 8 pension fund demonstration, and the NCDI program." In 1993,
AmeriCorps was established, a community service program that provided young people with an opportunity to serve their communities and earn money for college or skills training. In just five years, nearly 200,000 young people were enrolled in the program. In 1997, a
child tax credit was introduced that directly reduced a family's income tax bill by $500 per eligible child. In addition, federal funding for the Head Start program rose from $3.3 billion (in constant 2000 dollars) to $5.3 billion in 2000. A Direct Student Loan Program was introduced, along with an
Early Head Start program for children aged 0 to 3 and a
Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund to support both specialized financial institutions and traditional banks serving lower-income communities. In addition, the Medicare Benefit Package was expanded. Federal funding for child care was also expanded through his two terms. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act authorized an additional $4 billion in child care subsidies over six years on top of what would be authorized ordinarily by Congress, and consolidated and reorganized then-existent federal child care programs into a simplified and more accessible system. In 1998, Clinton proposed a plan that would expand the
Child and Dependent Care Credit to cover a portion of families' child care expenses up to an income limit of 200% above the federal poverty line, administer a tax break of up to $150,000 for businesses that provide child care, increase
Child Care and Development Block Grant funding to $5 billion per year by 2003, double the number of children eligible for early Head Start programs, and increase funding for the
Department of Education's before- and after-school program from an annual funding of $40 million in 1998 to $200 million. The
earned income tax credit was expanded to give a larger benefit to working families and allow childless workers to benefit as well. In 1996, Congress passed a 20% increase in the minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.15, which boosted earnings for nearly 10 million Americans. Clinton also unsuccessfully petitioned Congress to pass another minimum wage hike in 2000. As part of the Clinton Administration's welfare reforms, over 200,000 people on welfare received housing vouchers to help them move closer to jobs, while a welfare-to-work tax credit encouraged businesses to hire long-term welfare recipients. In addition, communities received federal support to design transportation solutions to help low-income workers get to work. Better nutritional support was provided for low-income families, with Congress (under Clinton's watch) increasing federal support for several critical nutritional and housing support programs. The
Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children went from average annual funding levels of $2.7 billion in the eight years before Clinton took office to $3.9 billion under his presidency, while the
Food Stamp program went from an average of $21.3 billion a year to $24.9 billion. In terms of housing, funding for federal housing assistance grew from an average of $20.4 billion a year in the eight years before Clinton's term to an average of $29 billion a year during his presidency.
Anti-drug strategy In February 1993, Clinton slashed 84 percent of staff at the
Office of National Drug Control Policy, resulting in the staff size being reduced from 146 to 24.
Economy Clinton presided over a "
Goldilocks economy", a period of low inflation and low unemployment. During the 1990s, the
Dow Jones Industrial Average quadrupled, and the share of families with investments in stocks rose from 32 percent in 1989 to 51 percent in 2001.
Income inequality also grew, as the richest households earned a higher proportion of the total income. Nonetheless, median household income, adjusted for inflation to 2000 dollars, grew from $38,262 in 1995 to $42,151 in 2000. By 2000, the unemployment rate had declined to four percent, while the poverty rate had declined to 11.3 percent. David Greenberg, a professor of history and media studies at
Rutgers University, argued that: Clinton proposed a $30 billion economic stimulus package in his first year in office, but his proposal was blocked by Senate Republicans, and he would be unable to win the passage of any similar proposal for the remainder of his presidency. Clinton held office at a time when
monetarism had supplanted
Keynesianism as the dominant theory of economic growth among many in Washington. Under the theory of monetarism, Clinton's fiscal policies would have relatively little impact on the economy. Instead, monetarists contended that the economy was guided by the
Federal Reserve Board of Governors, a group of appointed officials who set monetary policy. Throughout Clinton's presidency, Alan Greenspan served as the chairman of the Federal Reserve, and he emerged as an especially prominent public figure as the economy improved in mid-to-late 1990s. Though much of the credit for the strong economy was assigned to Greenspan, the Clinton administration also basked in the approval of Americans who enjoyed the benefits of a strong economy, and good economic conditions helped Clinton remain popular despite controversies over his personal life.
Deregulation Clinton presided over a period of deregulation in the telecommunications and financial industries. In 1999, Clinton signed into law the
Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLBA). The act repealed a provision of the New Deal's
Glass–Steagall Act of 1933 that had required banks to either classify themselves as either
commercial bank, which were subject to federal oversight and protections like
deposit insurance, or as
investment banks, which faced less regulations but did not benefit from federal protections. The financial services industry had attempted to repeal this provision of the GLBA since the 1980s, and they were finally successful due to cooperation from Secretary of the Treasury Rubin and Clintonians, who believed that the financial industry needed looser regulation in order for it to remain competitive globally. The bill passed both houses of Congress with only minimal resistance. Opposition to the plan came primarily from liberals like Senator
Paul Wellstone, who feared that looser banking regulations would lead to
financial crises. Shortly before leaving office, Clinton signed the
Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, which deregulated trading of
derivatives. The bill also included the "
Enron loophole", which lessened regulation of
energy trading by companies such as
Enron. Clinton also signed the
Telecommunications Act of 1996, which represented the first major overhaul of the
Communications Act of 1934.
Gay rights , 1993 Clinton supported the right of homosexual individuals to serve in the military, and, along with Secretary of Defense
Les Aspin, he developed a plan that would allow openly gay individuals to serve in the military. Clinton's proposal received strong pushback from military leaders, especially Marine Commandant
Carl Epting Mundy Jr. In response, General
Colin Powell suggested a compromise solution in which the military would not ask recruits about their sexual orientation, but would retain the right to discharge those who were gay. Clinton resisted the compromise policy, which became known as "
don't ask, don't tell", but congressional leaders of both parties made it clear that they would reverse any executive order allowing gay individuals to openly serve in the military. Clinton ultimately accepted the don't ask, don't tell policy, and over the ensuing ten years approximately 10,000 people were discharged from the military after they revealed their homosexuality. In September 1996, Clinton signed the
Defense of Marriage Act, which denied federal recognition to
same-sex marriages, though it had passed with a veto-proof majority and he called the law unnecessary and divisive.
Abortion On taking office, Clinton revoked a
gag order that had prevented
abortion counseling in federally funded clinics. He also signed an executive order allowing the use of fetal tissue in medical research. These early policies moves signaled Clinton's break with the socially conservative policies of his predecessors. Clinton also signed the
Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which made it a federal crime to obstruct
abortion clinics and places of worship. In April 1996, Clinton vetoed a bill to prohibit late or partial birth abortion calling the procedure potentially life-saving and arguing that the small group of women likely to be affected should not become pawns. Catholic bishops condemned his move. Clinton vetoed another such law in 1997. Republicans later passed the
Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which was signed by President George W. Bush in 2003. In October 1996, Clinton signed into law the Amber Hangerman Child Protection Act, which created the child abduction
Amber alert system for news stations and the national sex offender registry.
Firearms In November 1993, Clinton signed the
Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which required a
background check for gun purchasers. In 1994, Clinton signed the
Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which included a provision known as the
Federal Assault Weapons Ban. The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act provided funding for 100,000 local law enforcement officials, and established a federal
three-strikes law that enhanced criminal penalties for repeat offenders. The Federal Assault Weapons Ban barred the sale of several kinds of
semi-automatic rifles, but the provision did not apply to the 1.5 million semi-automatic rifles already in the possession of private owners, nor did it affect other types of guns.
Environmentalism Liberal Democrats gave environmentalism a higher priority than the economy-focused Clinton did. The Clinton administration responded to public demand for environmental protection. Clinton created 17 national monuments by executive order, prohibiting commercial activities such as logging, mining, and drilling for oil or gas. Clinton also imposed a permanent freeze on drilling in maritime sanctuaries. Other presidential and departmental orders protected various wetlands and coastal resources and extended the existing moratorium on new oil leases off the coast line through 2013. After the Republican victory in the 1994 elections, Clinton vetoed a series of budget bills that contained amendments designed to scale back environmental restrictions. Clinton boasted that his administration "adopted the strongest air-quality protections ever, improved the safety of our drinking water and food, cleaned up about three times as many toxic waste sites as the two previous administrations combined, [and] helped to promote a new generation of fuel-efficient vehicles and vehicles that run on alternative fuels". Vice President Gore was keenly concerned with global climate change, and Clinton created the President's Council on Sustainable Development. In November 1998, Clinton signed the
Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement in which
developed countries committed to reducing
carbon emissions. However, the Senate refused to ratify it since the agreement did not apply to the rapidly growing emissions of
developing countries, such as China, India, and Indonesia. The key person on environmental issues was
Bruce Babbitt, the former head of the
League of Conservation Voters, who served for all eight years as
Clinton's Secretary of the Interior. According to John D. Leshy: :His most remembered legacies will likely be his advocacy of environmental restoration, his efforts to safeguard and build support for the ESA (
Endangered Species Act of 1973) and the biodiversity that it helps protect., And the public land conservation measures that flowered on his watch. The Interior Department worked to protect scenic and historic areas of America's federal public lands. In 2000 Babbitt created the
National Landscape Conservation System, a collection of 15
U.S. National Monuments and 14
National Conservation Areas to be managed by the
Bureau of Land Management in such a way as to keep them "healthy, open, and wild." A major issue involved low fees charged ranchers who grazed cattle on public lands. The "animal unit month" (AUM) fee was only $1.35 and was far below the 1983 market value. The argument was that the federal government in effect was subsidizing ranchers, with a few major corporations controlling millions of acres of grazing land. Babbitt and Oklahoma Congressman
Mike Synar tried to rally environmentalists and raise fees, but senators from the
Western United States successfully blocked their proposals.
Agriculture Although Governor Clinton had a large farm base in Arkansas, as president he sharply cut support for farmers and raised taxes on tobacco. At one high level policy meeting budget expert
Alice Rivlin told the president she had a new slogan for his reelection campaign: "I'm going to end welfare as we know it for farmers." Clinton was annoyed and retorted, "Farmers are good people. I know we have to do these things. We're going to make these cuts. But we don't have to feel good about it." With exports accounting for more than a fourth of farm output, farm organizations joined business interests to defeat human rights activists regarding Most Favored Nation (MFN) trade status for China. They took the position that major tariff increases would hurt importers and consumers. They warned that China would retaliate to hurt American exporters. They wanted more liberal trade policies and less attention to Chinese human rights abuses. Environmentalists began taking a keen interest in agricultural policies. They feared that farming had a growing negative impact on the environment in terms of soil erosion and the destruction of wetlands. The expanding use of pesticides and fertilizers polluted soil and water not just on each farm but downstream into rivers and lakes and urban areas as well.
Education In the eight years before Clinton took office, federal funding for primary and secondary education averaged $8.5 billion a year, but over Clinton's two terms that average rose to $11.1 billion. The considerable increase in funding was supported by the
Improving America's Schools Act of 1994, which reauthorized the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. The goals were to improve accountability in schools and help low-income students succeed, while giving schools new authority to incorporate technology into curricula so that every student would be able to benefit from the technology revolution and contribute to its next wave. Federal support for higher education was also expanded, with the maximum
Pell Grant award increased and funding levels for student financial assistance increased by 20% by the end of Clinton's term. The 1993
Student Loan Reform Act introduced direct federal student loans, leading to both lower borrowing costs for students and billions in savings for the federal government. In 1997, two tax credits were passed to help defray the costs of higher education: the Hope Scholarship tax credit and the Lifetime Learning tax credit. Federal funding for scientific research was boosted, with funding for the National Science Foundation increased by more than 30%, and the annual budget for the Department of Energy's Office of Science nearly doubled to $2.8 billion. To increase Internet access and reduce the "digital divide" funding for Community Technology Centers (which were located in urban and rural neighborhoods that had little or no Internet access) was tripled. Expanded Educational technology was expanded, with the amount spent on educational technology increased from $27 million in 1994 to $769 million by 2000, and as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Clinton won the inclusion of "E-Rate", which subsidized Internet access for schools and libraries.
Health In the eight years before Clinton took office, the
National Institutes of Health spent an average of $9 billion a year, but under Clinton Congress boosted NIH funding by 40 percent to average $12.7 billion annually. By 2000 federal NIH funding had surpassed $15 billion a year, a 50% increase over NIH spending when Clinton first took office, and the highest level of research funding ever spent on research on health and disease.
Community reinvestment Under Clinton's direction, lenders covered under the
Community Reinvestment Act stepped up their efforts, with 1993 to 1999, banks and thrifts subject to CRA making $800 billion in sustainable home mortgage, small-business, and community development loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers and communities from 1993 to 1999. In 2001, the New Markets and Community Renewal initiative was passed by Congress, which invested $25 billion in new incentives for growth in low-income communities to create nine new Empowerment Zones, bringing the total created under Clinton to 40. The low-income housing tax credit was increased to build an additional 700,000 units of affordable housing, and the New Markets Tax Credit was created, which encouraged venture capital firms to support small-business startups and rural development. In addition, 40 Renewal Communities were created with targeted, pro-growth tax benefits to spur robust outside investment. As a means of creating a nationwide network of community development banks, the Treasury Department's
Community Development Financial Institutions Fund was established. By 2000, the CDFI Fund had issued $436 million in total grants, loans, equity investments, and technical assistance to local financial institutions, banks, and thrifts, which increased their community development activities by upward of $2.4 billion. Responding to declining
home-ownership rates for low-income families, Clinton sought to reform the
Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) to encourage banks to make loans to inhabitants of low-income areas. The administration implemented new rules that would prevent banks from expanding if they failed to meet benchmarks for loans to low-income areas. Between 1993 and 1998, CRA lending increased at a faster rate than other loans, and home values in many CRA areas rose. Banks implemented new strategies designed to cater to lower-income borrowers, including the
adjustable-rate mortgage. This effort was part of a broader initiative, the National Homeownership Strategy, which helped increase the share of Americans who owned their own homes from 64 percent to 67.4% during Clinton's presidency.
Subprime lending that allowed Americans to purchase homes later played a role in the
2008 financial crisis.
Immigration In 1996, Clinton signed which included the
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.
Other policies Copyright The
Digital Millennium Copyright Act, enacted by Clinton on October 21, 1998, served as the first significant amendment to the
Copyright Act since 1976. The DMCA provided a framework for
sound recording copyright owners and recording artists to seek public performance royalties under statute, which proved to be a landmark achievement for the recording industry. The law included a provision reiterating the "
fair use" of copyrighted materials, and another provision that exempted internet service providers from responsibility for inadvertently transmitting copyrighted works. That same month, Clinton also signed the
Copyright Term Extension Act, which retroactively extended copyright protection and stopped copyrighted works entering into the public domain for an extra twenty years.
Pardons "Pardongate" was the
Bill Clinton pardon controversy when critics attacked his manner of giving out 450 pardons, a third of them on his last day in office. Scholars use two different models to describe the pardons process. Clinton used the presidential model, viewing the pardon power as a convenient resource to be used to help party activists or to advance specific policy goals. Critics favored the agency model, which views the pardons process as a nonpolitical matter for legal experts in the Department of Justice. An investigation found that he was legally within his rights.
Neoliberal policies The Clinton administration embraced neoliberal policies. Major neoliberal policies included the passage of the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), continuing the deregulation of the financial sector through passage of the
Commodity Futures Modernization Act and the repeal of the
Glass–Steagall Act and implementing cuts to the
welfare state through passage of the
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act. The American historian
Gary Gerstle writes that while Reagan was the ideological architect of the neoliberal order which was formulated in the 1970s and 1980s, it was Clinton who was its key facilitator, and as such this order achieved dominance in the 1990s and early 2000s. The neoliberalism of the Clinton administration differs from that of Reagan as the Clinton administration purged neoliberalism of
neoconservative positions on
militarism, family values, opposition to
multiculturalism and neglect of ecological issues. Writing in
New York, journalist
Jonathan Chait disputed accusations that the
Democratic Party had been hijacked by neoliberals, saying that its policies have largely stayed the same since the New Deal. Instead, Chait suggested these accusations arose from arguments that presented a
false dichotomy between free-market economics and socialism, ignoring mixed economies. American feminist philosopher
Nancy Fraser says the modern Democratic Party has embraced a "progressive neoliberalism", which she describes as a "progressive-neoliberal alliance of financialization plus emancipation". Historian
Walter Scheidel says that both parties shifted to promote free-market capitalism in the 1970s, with the Democratic Party being "instrumental in implementing financial deregulation in the 1990s". Historians
Andrew Diamond and
Thomas Sugrue argue that neoliberalism became a "'dominant rationality' precisely because it could not be confined to a single partisan identity." Economic and political inequalities in schools, universities, and libraries and an undermining of democratic and civil society institutions influenced by neoliberalism has been explored by Buschman. ==Foreign affairs==