Clinton unseated incumbent President
George H. W. Bush in
1992 despite Bush's previously high approval ratings. As President, Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history. The
Congressional Budget Office reported a budget surplus between the years 1998 and 2000, the last three years of Clinton's presidency. He implemented
Don't ask, don't tell, a controversial intermediate step to full gay military integration. After a failed
health care reform attempt,
Republicans won control of the
House of Representatives in 1994, for the first time in forty years. Two years later, the re-elected Clinton became the first member of the Democratic Party since
Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second full term as president. He successfully passed
SCHIP, providing health coverage for millions of children. Later, he was
impeached for
perjury and
obstruction of justice in a
scandal involving a White House intern, but was acquitted by the
U.S. Senate and served his complete term of office.
