televised address saying quote kuwait is liberated
liberated
iraq's army is defeated our military
objectives are met
kuwait is once more in the hands of
kuwaitis in control of their own destiny
we share in their joy a joy tempered
only by our compassion for their ordeal
no one country can claim this victory as
its own it was not only a victory for
kuwait but a victory for all the
coalition partners this is a victory for
the united nations for all mankind
for the rule of law and for what is
right the united states lost 146 service
personnel in the war 30 because of scad
missiles and
third because of friendly fire while a
hundred thousand
iraqis died three u.s tanks were destroyed
destroyed
thirty seven hundred iraqi tanks were destroyed
destroyed
the war cost the united states 76
billion dollars to fight remember wars
are always expensive even short ones
but bush senior again turned to
diplomacy and he asked other coalition
nations to chip into his
ten cup this became known as operation
tin cup and it was a
success saudi arabia paid 30 of
america's war costs kuwait paid 25
japan paid 10 percent and so on basically
basically
h.w bush made the argument that while
all of these nations were in this
together it was the american military
that led the military action
and therefore wouldn't it be nice if the
other nations chipped into his
tin cup to help out and by the time they
all did this
the united states only paid 12 of its
war costs or about
seven billion dollars bush won enormous
popularity and his gallup polls
showed a job approval rating as high as 84
84
which is very very high for an american president
president
but going into the 1992 election h.w
bush had still not
quite won over the new right that
aggressively conservative wing of the
party still doubted him despite his
attacks on dukakis
his embrace of the flag and the pledge
and his promise
quote read my lips no new taxes
so they were furious when the budget
deficit the savings and loan bailout
that we talked about during reagan and
signs of an inevitable economic recession
recession
caused bush to renege on his read my
lips pledge of no new taxes in 1990.
now he is a fiscal conservative and he
believed it was the responsible fiscally
conservative thing to do
all right reagan had said that these tax
cuts would pay for themselves they
didn't end up doing that now the nation
is going further
and further into debt and we're heading
into an economic recession that's only
going to be made worse by the widening
wealth gap
and so he has a tax increase
his turnabout caused a 25 drop in his
approval ratings and the new york post
front page read
read my lips i lied republicans said he
wasn't a reagan republican
the gulf war had turned those numbers
around but they didn't guarantee re-election
re-election
by 1992 unemployment was up to eight
percent so that's higher than we like it
closer to six to seven percent and gnp
actually declined one and a half percent
that year
now reaganomics had taken its toll and
these numbers made re-election almost
impossible so one thing we need to remember
remember
is that any kind of change made to the
economy takes several years to really
take root so bush here is basically
paying for reagan's economic policies
bush faced a primary challenge from
political commentator patrick buchanan a
former reagan and nixon white house advisor
advisor
who you saw in the day the 60s died documentary
documentary
buchanan cast bush as a moderate not
worthy of the conservative support that
had been given to reagan
he depicted bush as un as an unworthy
steward of the conservative movement
unwilling to fight for conservative
americans in the nation's culture war
buchanan did not defeat bush in the
republican primaries but he weakened
bush's candidacy any time you're
in office and someone from your own
party tries to unseat you
that's a big sign of weakness in 1992
the democratic party nominated a relative
relative
unknown arkansas governor bill clinton
and clinton was dogged by charges of
marital infidelity and draft dodging
during vietnam
but he was a consummate charismatic
politician with a skilled political team
now democrats are going down to defeat for
for
several elections at this point so he
framed himself as a new democrat a centrist
centrist
open to free trade tax cuts and welfare reform
reform
things that had traditionally been
embraced by conservatives
22 years younger than bush he was the
first baby boomer to make a serious run
at the presidency
and that age gap really played in the media
media
clinton presented the campaign as a
generational choice he appeared on
mtv and he played the saxophone on the
arsenio hall show
bush ran on his experience and against
clinton's moral failings and clinton was
able to convince voters that his
moderated southern brand of new liberalism
liberalism
would be more effective than the
moderate conservatism of bush
bush's candidacy of course was most
crippled by the sudden economic recession
recession
it's the economy stupid clinton's
political team reminded the country that
is the sign they had
up in their headquarters it's the
economy stupid
clinton would win the election but the
reagan revolution still reigned clinton
and his running mate tennessee senator
albert gore jr both
moderate southerners promised a path
away from the old liberalism and the
landslide electoral defeats of the 70s
and 80s they were
democrats but conservative democrats
so-called new democrats so more moderate
than liberal
in his first term clinton sent out an
ambitious agenda his moves to reform
welfare open
trade and deregulate financial markets
were hallmarks of his
third way a political middle path
that synthesized liberal and
conservative ideas
clinton finished negotiations for nafta
the north american free trade agreement
which abolished trade barriers between
the united states mexico and canada
so no trade barriers no tariffs between
canada the united states and mexico
north american free trade agreement
in doing so clinton reversed decades of
democratic opposition to free trade
because they feared it would harm
american labor
he opened the nation's northern and
southern borders to the free flow of
capital and goods that is free trade
but critics argue that nafta opened
american workers to competition by
low-paid foreign workers
and many american factories actually
relocated after nafta
and set up shops called maquilas in
northern mexico
that could take advantage of mexico's
low wages and then move those goods
across the border into the united states
without having to pay
any tariff or tax for having them made
outside the country
thousands of mexicans rushed to the
maquilas but thousands more continued on
past the border while nafta opened
america's borders to goods and services
people still navigated strict legal
barriers to immigration
policymakers believed that free trade
would create jobs and wealth that would
incentivize mexican workers to stay
home in mexico yet multitudes continue
to leave for opportunities in the united states
states
prohibiting undocumented migration
proved exceedingly difficult
poverty political corruption violence
and just hopes for a better life in the
u.s or simply higher wages continued to
lure mexican immigrants
between 1990 and 2010 the number of
undocumented immigrants tripled from 3.5
million to 11.2 million
and large numbers continued to migrate
to traditional immigrant destinations california
california
texas new york florida new jersey and illinois
illinois
policymakers responded to this influx of immigrants
immigrants
and vocal complaints of nativist
anti-immigration activists
with operations gatekeeper and el paso
and hold the line
in san francisco which attempted to make
crossing the border more difficult
so they strengthened physical barriers
they built border fences and they
increased border patrol presence along
the border
and their efforts were intended to
funnel immigrants to dangerous and
remote crossing areas
immigration officials hoped the brutal
natural landscape or dangerous areas
dominated by drug cartels would serve as
both natural and man-made deterrence to immigration
immigration
the number of immigrants who died trying
to cross the border rose significantly
and as crossing the border was more
difficult undocumented immigrants who
successfully crossed into the united
states ended up staying
longer than before because it was more
dangerous to go back
clinton also continued financial
deregulation begun by reagan and h.w
bush that would later be continued by
george w bush
as well they rolled back depression-era restraints
restraints
and regulations originally put in place
to prevent another great depression from occurring
occurring
and these restraints had worked while
the u.s suffered economic downturns it
had not suffered a depression anywhere
near the size or scale of the great
depression since the 1930s
but these regulations annoyed businesses
and bankers whose actions they restricted
restricted
clinton signed a law repealing much of
the 1933 glass-steagall act which kept
different kinds of financial
institutions separate
so it had separated commercial banks
where customers deposit money and take
out loans
and investment firms which hold
securities and make investments
so the law separated main street from
wall street in part to separate riskier
accounts from those the government insured
insured
through the fdic created by fdr's new
deal so that's the federal deposit
insurance corporation
so the idea was that if those riskier
investment accounts didn't pay off if
they caused the bank to go under the
government wouldn't then have to pay out
those fdic insured accounts because
they'd be in a separate bank
so that law basically goes away clinton
also signed the commodity futures
modernization act which exempted
credit default swaps that is cds's from regulation
regulation
cds is a financial swap agreement that
the seller of the cds will compensate
the buyer
in the event of a loan default by the
debtor i know it sounds very complicated
just no it's a financial thing clinton
deregulated and it did not work out well
this bipartisan effort to roll back some
of the depression era restrictions
on the economy enabled risky business
practices to dominate american finance
and would eventually trigger the great
recession in late 2007 the worst
economic depression since the great depression
depression
uh and of course now we're at the worst
depression again
since the great depression and it's not
a coincidence that they've undone a lot
of these regulations and now we're
getting hit with these recessions
when clinton took office the department
of defense's policies completely
restricted gay people from serving in
the armed forces so on the intake form
it would
ask about your sexuality and if you
admitted to homosexuality you would not be
be
able to join the military clinton pushed
through a
compromised plan between allowing gay
people to openly serve and barring them
entirely called
don't ask don't tell so it removed any
questions about sexual orientation in
the induction interview but it also
required that gay service men and women
keep their orientation
private and this is one of those
compromises that really didn't please
anybody social conservatives were
outraged that gay people could serve in
the military while liberals recoiled at
the continued anti-gay discrimination
in his first term clinton put forward
universal health care as a major policy
goal that's the thing he wanted to get done
done
and as we've noted most advanced nations
accomplished this after world war ii but
the us continues to lag behind
first lady hillary rodham clinton played
a major role in this initiative
conservatives revolted though and the
health care industry flooded airwaves
with attack ads
clinton struggled to win over congress
and voters and the push for a national
healthcare system failed
again the midterm elections of 1994 were
a disaster for the democrats who lost
the house of representatives for the
first time since 1952.
congressional republicans led by georgia
congressman newt gingrich and texas
congressman dick armey offered a new
contract with americas that's what they
want to get passed if you put them in office
office
republican candidates gathered on the
steps of the capitol and they pledged
their commitment to a conservative
legislative blueprint to be enacted if
the gop won control of the house
social conservatives were mobilized
especially by the christian coalition
led by ralph reed and pat robertson a tv
minister and entrepreneur
and also failed candidate for the
republican presidential nomination in 1988
1988
from his campaign's mailing list the
christian coalition organized to
influence politics
on the local and national level so
clinton again because he's
this moderate advertising the third way
will actually
help newt gingrich get some of this
stuff passed
because it's part of this kind of middle
path between being super conservative
and being super liberal so there you
have it what were hw bush's main policies
policies
what steps did bush take before and
after the first skull four and what was
the third way
in some of the third way policies if you
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