The Survivor Bill Clinton In The White House Summary

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The Survivor Bill Clinton in the White House Book Summary The book, The Survivor Bill Clinton in the White House, starts by telling how Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992 against the incumbent, President George H. W. Bush and won. When Bill Clinton was inaugurated, he started working on the budget and one of his campaign promises, which was to cut the federal deficit down to half of what it was by the end of his first term in 1997 (Harris 23). In order to reduce the deficit, Clinton took the advice of Vice President Gore, which was to increase taxes (Harris 25). When the economic plan was finished and ready to be shown to the nation, it had for every one new dollar spent, a two dollar reduction of the deficit (Harris 29). Also early in …show more content…

Changing welfare had been one of his biggest campaign promises and it as also a dividing issue between republicans and democrats. Clinton thought that it would save money, even though at first it would cost money to help with job training and child care and Clinton thought legal immigrants should also be able to get welfare while republicans thought the opposite (Harris 231). Clinton was first offered two different welfare reform bills, but he veto them both because they did meet what he wanted (harris 231-232). Finally after months, Clinton signed a welfare reform bill, even though it didn’t include legal immigrants in it (Harris …show more content…

After Clinton was elected for his second term is when progres was really being seen about the deficit. In 1997, there was an 8.2% annual growth and the deficit was down to $22 billion in 1997 from the $290 billion in 1993 because of the tax revenue (Harris 263). The book then talks about how Clinton wanted to expand NATO to the new nations of the former Soviet Union to make an united Europe (Harris 282). The Russian president was uncertain at first because Clinton wanted all nations of the former Soviet Union to join, however, Russia did end up joining after Clinton said that all nations wouldn’t be joining at once (Harris 287-288). The book then talks about how Clinton had to help out in in the Kosovo problem. Kosovo was a province in Serbia, where Kosovar Albanians were at war with the ethnic Serbs (Harris 366). NATO forces were fighting in this army and Clinton had warned the Serbian dictator to pull out from Kosovo if he didn’t want any U.S troops on the ground and after a few weeks he agreed to NATO’s demands and the war in Kosovo ended (Harris