BETWEEN TWO CITIES

With economic recession closing out the Bush presidency, it is fitting to take a look back at the conclusion of the Clinton presidency. In 2000, Bill Clinton gave his last State of the Union Address. In his autobiography, he sums up as follows:

My last State of the Union address was a joy to deliver. We had more than twenty million new jobs, the lowest unemployment rate and smallest welfare rolls in thirty years, the lowest crime rate in twenty-five years, the lowest poverty rate in twenty years, the smallest federal workforce in forty years, the first back-to-back surpluses in forty-two years, seven years of declining teen pregnancies and a 30 percent increase in adoptions, and 150,000 young people who had served in AmeriCorps. Within a month we would have the longest economic expansion in American history, and by the end of the year we would have three consecutive surpluses for the first time in more than fifty years.

Bill Clinton, My Life, pp. 891-92.