1994-1999: give credit where credit is due

[SingingAnalyst]

The years 1993 and 1994 were unique in US history, in a campy sort of way: shortly after Bill Clinton's inauguration, a news story featured a story on male castration, explaining that castrati "live longer". Of course, it was June 23rd of that year that Lorena Bobbitt made history with a kitchen knife. That was also the year of flooding in Iowa, of mass hysteria concerning syringes in Pepsi bottles, and attacks similar to Bobbitt's that made the evening news. The absurdity continued into 1994, with a man associated with Tonya Harding attacking skater Nancy Kerrigan on Jan. 6 at Detroit's Cobo Hall, the January acquittal of Lorena Bobbitt after an Ecuadoran "feminist" group promised to castrate 100 American men if she was convicted, Kurt Cobain's suicide, and, of course, the Ron Goldman-Nicole Brown Simpson murders, for which former football star O.J. Simpson was a prime suspect.

The year culminated, of course, in the takeover of the US Senate and House by the GOP, and massive wins for the GOP at the state level as well.

So, what happened after that?

From 1994-1999, the economy flourished, violent crime had one of its steepest drops in history, and, in a virtually unprecedented development, the suicide rate among 15-24 year old males, which was horrifyingly high in the mid-1980s through early 1990s and spiked even higher in 1993 and 1994, experienced its only sharp drop in US history outside of wartime. (The rate would remain low through 2013, then rise sharply through 2017).

So, who deserves credit for improving American fortunes from 1994-1999? The President, or the House Speaker? I vote both equally.

[RINO Tom]

Both semi-equally (slight edge to the GOP Congress, as Clinton CLEARLY pivoted to support what might be popular, given his first few years), though most of the credit belongs to external forces/being lucky.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The policies enacted between 1994 and 1999 were some of the most vile, cruel and destructive in American history, and are directly responsible for how screwed up America is now. So no one deserves "credit" for them (but plenty of people deserve blame).

[darklordoftech]

The dot-com boom and a generation passing since lead paint was banned were probably the main reasons things got better.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Prez Clinton, but any D could of done the same job and Dems would have been saved from an impeachment if Jerry Brown was Prez, instead

[dw93]

Clinton as well as George HW Bush deserve credit for the balanced budgets, as it was Bush's 1990 Budget deal (which had a hand in costing him a 2nd term) as well as Clinton's 1993 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act that set the stage for them. As for the overall economy, it was the business cycle as well as factors beyond the control of any President or Congress that made that happen.