Power, Lost and Found: America At Century’s End 543for him and the Democratic Party. Instead, Clinton, like Reagan and Bush,
would take care of the ruling elite, and do so very well. Clinton backed away
from traditional Democratic ideas about the need for economic regulations on
corporations and banks, and instead removed rules on banks and other busi-
nesses. This led to a huge growth in the stock market, as capitalist America
could invest, trade, find workers, and exploit resources with fewer restrictions
than ever.
To Clinton’s advocates, however, his presidency marked the peak of eco-
nomic growth in the past half-century. Economic growth averaged 4 percent
a year, almost 50 percent higher than the Reagan and Bush years. Clinton
created more new jobs, 22 million, than any presidential administration in his-
tory, while unemployment and inflation dropped to their lowest levels since
the 1960s, and the number of Americans living in poverty saw its biggest
decline since those years as well. Following the huge budge deficits he pre-
decessors built up, Clinton reduced the debt and actually left office with a
budget surplus. The 1990s, as Clinton and the Democrats would argue, was
the strongest period of economic growth since the Kennedy and early Johnson
years.
FIGuRE 10-11 President Bill Clinton