Q1
Clintonomics refers to the fiscal and monetary policies applied in the period marked by shrinking budget deficits, low-interest rates and globalization. It is the economic and fiscal policies that were put forth by President Bill Clinton during his time in office from 1993 to 2001. Clinton’s economic policy was highlighted by deficit reduction and the creation of NAFTA, which was a free trade agreement between the US, Canada, and Mexico.
The 1990s were recalled as the time of strong economic growth, steady job creation, low inflation, rising productivity, economic boom, and a surging stock market that resulted from a combination of rapid technological changes and sound central monetary policy. There was an economic boom in the 1990s, which began in the first quarter of 1991 when the GDP increased from -1.8% to 3.14%. From that point moving forward, the GDP was growing positively with the second quarter of 2000 being the highest quarter with 7.7%. Globalization has dramatically expanded during the 1990s, which resulted in increased GDP. With globalization, there was the growth of technology. Countries could trade efficiently, and even technology grew fast, making it easy to communicate and carry on the daily business. Globalization increased in this period with the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement, known as NAFTA, which allowed easy trade between Mexico, the United States, and Canada. Other trade agreements were signed across the world.
Q2
The 1994 midterm elections saw the Republican Party gain a majority of seats in the US House of Representatives for the first time since 1954. The 54 seat swing in the house ushered in an era of divided government that persisted for the remainder of the 1990s. It was a bad democratic defeat in the House of Representatives, judged against the historical record of off-year elections. The worst whipping a president’s party had taken in precisely 100 years when Grover Cleveland was in the White House. Usually, many voters go to the poll to vote for a presidential candidate, and many of them vote for the presidential candidate’s party’s House candidates. The winning presidential candidate’s party usually picks the extra seats in the house, but this was different.
As a result of the past problems with the existing welfare system, a political consensus that there was the need to do something had emerged in the 1990s even though the parties were ever divided into the specifics. In the 1994 midterm elections, the Democrats lost the control of the chambers in Congress to Republicans touting their “Contract With America” under the control of Newt Gingrich, the new House Speaker, which meant that Clinton would have to forge a bipartisan compromise to fulfill his campaign promise. Republicans passed two reform packages using their newfound majority, which were promptly rejected by President Clinton. Clinton would work with Gingrich and other Republicans to craft a compromise bill. The bill finally passed both the House and Senate with strong bipartisan support.
Q3
Communist Yugoslavia, which came up shortly after WWII, was made up of six republicans: Slovenia, Macedonia, Croatia, Serbia, and Montenegro. Following its autocratic leader Josip Broz Tito in 1980, the Yugoslav federation found itself in crisis, with bickering between ethnic groups and heaving nationalist sentiments. In 1990, the first multiparty elections in the republics were won mostly by nationalists. The most prosperous republics, Slovenia and Croatia, started advocating a greater decentralization of Yugoslavia’s government. In June 1991, the parliament of Slovenia and Croatia declared independence, which led to the deployment of the Belgrade-controlled Yugoslav army (JNA) towards the affected borders and airports. In Croatia, Serbian troops sided with ethnic Serb rebels who opposed independence, launching what would become a four-year war. In 1992 war broke out between Bosnia’s Muslims and Croats, who were on one side, and Bosnian Serbs. Bosnian troops immediately began a siege of Sarajevo’s Bosnian capital, which would last for 44 months. The city’s residents struggled to get necessities, and at least 10,000 persons were killed by sniping and shelling by Serbs. Estimated 20,000 women were raped mostly Muslims. The wars went on with the last Kosovo conflicts taking place in 1999.
The United States sent military forces to the Balkans during the 1990s to rescue people from atrocities committed against them – “crimes against humanity” and to take the decisive action that NATO as a peacekeeping enterprise could not end the war. President Clinton’s administration gave aid to the Muslims who suffered under the Serbian nationals. It was right for the US to engage in the wars because they helped bring peace in the countries they also gave aid to the wars’ victims.
Q4
After close to 14 hours of debate, the House of Representatives approved two articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton. Clinton, who was the second president of America in history to be impeached, vowed to complete his term. He was charged with lying under oath to a federal grand jury and obstructing justice. In November 1995, Clinton began an affair with Monica Lewinsky, 21 years of age and an unpaid intern. In December 1997, Paula Jones, lawyers who were suing Clinton on sexual harassment, summoned Lewinsky. When the story broke, January 1998, the president publicly denied the allegations saying, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.” On August 6, Lewinsky began her testimony before the grand jury and August 17, the president testified. Contrary to the case of Paula Jones, the president acknowledged to prosecutors from the office of the independent counsel that he had an extramarital affair with Ms. Lewinsky.
After several allegations were put on the president, the impeachment process began in December 1998 by the House of Representatives and led to a Senate trial. The 42nd president faced four charges: perjury and obstruction of justice passed, leading to the impeachment. Other than the impeachment, the president was fined $90,000 for lying to the court against the sexual harassment case filed against him. When one is found guilty of sexual harassment, it leads to a stipulated fine or imprisonment. A different standard should judge famous people and politicians. They should be given severe penalties and high fines charges. This is because they should be the people who put an example to the public on how to abide by the law.
Q5
Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), the coalition military operation led by the US in Iraq was launched on March 20, 2003, with the immediate stated goal of removing Saddam Hussein’s regime and destroying its ability to use weapons mass destruction or to make them available to terrorists. Over time, OIF’s focus shifted from regime removal to a more open-ended mission of helping the Government of Iraq (GOI) enhance security, institute a system of governance, and substitute economic development. In February 2009, President Obama delivered a speech that addressed how the war would end. In his speech, he announced the US combat forces’ drawdown by August 2010 and the transition of the rest of the military mission.
The involvement of the US in Operation Iraqi Freedom had some positive consequences resulting from it. The operation led to the removal of Saddam from the power and also finished Iraq’s ability to make the devices of mass destruction available to terrorists. The government of Iraq was also stimulated as a result. The end of this war returned peace to the United States, and business was back. With the return of international trade saw, the US GDP multiplied.
On the negative consequence, the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan costed the US in several ways. For instance, in the American Armed Forces by November 9, 2007, 4,578 soldiers had lost their lives, and 30,205 had been wounded, many of them seriously. The war’s overall economic costs to the American taxpayers and the entire US economy went well beyond even the immense federal budget costs that were reported.