Bill Clinton biography

Through a task force headed by First Lady Hillary Clinton, he endorsed a massive health-care reform act that was designed to provide universal health coverage. The bill failed to move through Congress, however, and became a massive political disaster, leading to Republicans regaining control of both houses of Congress in 1994.

However, in an impressive political comeback,

President Clinton again embraced centrist policies and rhetoric to restore his popularity in advance of the 1996 election. In 1994, he signed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, a law that added 100,000 policemen and instituted harsher punishments for a variety of crimes, and in 1996 he signed a law increasing the national minimum wage. Despite the fact that a one-term presidency seemed a foregone conclusion two years earlier, in 1996 Clinton handily defeated Republican challenger Bob Dole to secure a second term in office.

Clinton's greatest accomplishment as president was leading the nation to a period of strong economic prosperity. While Clinton was in office, the nation enjoyed the lowest unemployment rates in recent times, the lowest inflation rate in decades, the highest homeownership rates in its history, and improving economic equality.

Clinton's foreign policy achievements included presiding over the 1993 signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, at which the famous handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat occurred, stabilizing war-torn Bosnia through the Dayton Peace Accords and helping to end Serbia's ethnic cleansing of Albanians in Kosovo. However, the failure of the American military mission in Somalia and the United States' inaction in the face of genocide in Rwanda stand out as major blemishes on Clinton's foreign policy record.

Clinton's reputation also suffered from scandal in his personal life. His second term in the White House was dominated by the Monica Lewinsky scandal; the president at first denied, and then later admitted, that he had sexual relations with the 22-year-old White House intern. Congress appointed an independent prosecutor, Kenneth Starr, to investigate the affair; he produced a very explicit report with salacious details, known as the Starr Report. In 1998, the Republican-dominated House of Representatives impeached Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice for his actions in the Lewinsky affair. However, the Senate acquitted him on all charges in 1999.

Post-Presidential Career

In the years since his presidency concluded in 2001, Bill Clinton has remained active on the global stage. Through the William J. Clinton Foundation (which he founded in 1997), Clinton created the Clinton Climate Initiative, dedicated to fostering research to combat climate change; the Clinton Global Initiative, an annual meeting of world leaders to discuss global issues; and the Clinton Foundation Haiti Fund, dedicated to rebuilding Haiti in the aftermath of its devastating 2010 earthquake. According to Clinton, the foundation's mission is "to alleviate poverty, improve global health, strengthen economies and protect the environment by fostering partnerships among governments, businesses, nongovernmental organizations and private citizens."