Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton served as the forty-second President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He was the third-youngest president, older only than Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. He became president at the end of the Cold War, and as he was born in the period after World War II, is known as the first Baby Boomer president. He is the husband of New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. He is one of only two U.S. Presidents to have been impeached. He was subsequently acquitted by the U.S. Senate on the perjury and obstruction of justice charges.

Clinton was described as a New Democrat and was largely known for the Third Way philosophy of governance that came to epitomize his two terms as president. His policies, on issues such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and welfare reform, have been described as "centrist." Clinton presided over the longest period of peace-time economic expansion in American history, which included a balanced budget and a reported federal surplus. Based on Congressional accounting rules, at the end of his presidency Clinton reported a surplus of $559 billion. On the heels of a failed attempt at health care reform with a Democratic Congress, Republicans won control of the House of Representatives for the first time in forty years. Two years later, he was re-elected and became the first Democrat US President since Franklin Roosevelt to win a second term.