Eight Years Ago

From eight to sixteen years ago (1993-2001):

• The United States had sustained the longest peacetime economic expansion in history. Over 20 million jobs were created. We had the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years, the lowest poverty rate in 20 years, and the highest home ownership rate on record.
• The United States had eliminated its $290 billion budget deficit, produced back to back surpluses and paid off over $140 billion of the national debt. This resulted in lower interest rates on mortgages and car loans – an effective tax cut of $2,000 for a family with a $100,000 mortgage.
• The United States had reversed ethnic cleansing in Kosovo by leading NATO alliance to victory and returning nearly 1 million refugees to their homes. The President also had worked to broker peace in the Middle East, bring peace to Bosnia, restore democracy to Haiti, and end hostilities in Northern Ireland.
• President Clinton kept his promise to reform the welfare system by supporting work and responsibility, moving millions to work--1.3 million in 1998 alone, reducing the welfare rolls by more than half to the lowest level in 30 years, and nearly doubling child support collections.
• Congress passed the Brady Law to stop nearly half a million felons, fugitives, and domestic abusers from getting guns. They had enacted a tough crime bill that funded 100,000 community police officers and banned assault weapons--helping to reduce the overall crime rate for the seventh year in a row, the longest consecutive decline ever recorded.
• The Nation had created new options to pay for college, such as HOPE Scholarships and AmeriCorps, opening the doors of college to all Americans.
• The President enacted an initiative to hire 100,000 quality teachers to reduce class size; slots for 200,000 new Head Start students; after-school and summer-school programs; GEAR-UP college preparation opportunities; Internet connections for America's classrooms; and strong leadership that resulted in higher standards for practically every American student and school.
• The President had strengthened Medicare by adding preventive benefits, cracking down on fraud and waste and extending the life of the Trust Fund from 1999 to 2015; enacted reforms to prevent people from losing their health insurance when changing jobs or being denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions, and to allow people with disabilities to work without losing their health coverage; and raised childhood immunization rates to all time high and provided health coverage to millions of uninsured children.
• We had cleaned over 500 toxic waste dumps, improved air quality by setting the toughest smog and soot standards ever and protected tens of millions of acres of public lands.
• We'd won important victories for children and families like passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act, targeted middle class tax cuts, an increase in the minimum wage and expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit.
• We had concluded more than 270 market opening agreements. Opening foreign markets has contributed to the 62 percent increase in American exports since 1992.
• Under the leadership of Vice President Gore's National Performance Review, the United States eliminated over 16,000 pages of federal regulations and reduced the federal workforce by 375,000 federal employees.

So, what's happened since 2001?