Modern US policy.

17.4.1. In 1991 George Bush won public approval for his management of the Persian Gulf War. First the brief war caused oil prices to rise, and war costs put new pressures on federal finances. Second, Bush had promised “no new taxes,” but in fact agreed to raise taxes. Finally, the president clashed with Congress over how to improve the economy and reduce the huge national deficit.

As a moderate “New Democrat,” Bill Clinton in 1992 bucked the trend. He supported centrist, middle-class goals such as efficient government, economic growth, a balanced budget, and health care reform. But Clinton's most important goal—a sweeping reform of the national health care system—failed. Clinton's reputation suffered in 1998 with the revelation of an extramarital affair with a White House intern. Clinton was acquitted by the Senate in February 1999.

17.4.2. At the century's end, Americans were enmeshed in the global economy; tens of millions of American jobs depended on world markets. Many U.S. companies set up operations abroad to reduce labor costs and to ensure access to foreign markets. The global economy also meant that events in markets around the world had a greater effect on financial markets in the United States. Many American investors discovered this effect in the fall of 1998, when stock prices, influenced by markets in Japan, Europe, and around the globe, wavered wildly.

17.4.3. In the last quarter of the 20th century, the United States underwent social changes as well as economic ones. The new diversity reflected rising immigration rates. Immigrants from Asia and Latin America quickly surpassed in number those who came from Europe. The new immigration of the late 20th century differed from that of a century earlier. Economic problems in Mexico spurred still more immigration, legal and illegal. The largest number of illegal aliens in the 1990s came from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Haiti. Many others came from Canada, Poland, China, and Ireland.

17.4.5. Critics of immigration policy contended that lawmakers who passed immigration laws since the 1960s had underestimated their effect. They believed that the new immigration created more problems than benefits. They saw high immigration rates as threatening America's common culture, increasing competition for jobs, lowering wages, profiting only employers, injuring labor, and especially harming those at the bottom of the job market.

The experience of the last decades of the century suggests that the pursuit of American ideals —of liberty, equality, and democracy—is a process that rests on conflict as well as consensus.

LECTURE 18

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