The 1990s and Beyond The 1990s brought a new president, Bill Clinton (1993-2000). A cautious, moderate Democrat, Clinton sounded some of the same themes as his predecessors. After unsuccessfully urging Congress to enact an ambitious proposal to expand health-insurance coverage, Clinton declared that the era of "big government" was over in America. He pushed to strengthen market forces in some sectors, working with Congress to open local telephone service to competition. He also joined Republicans to reduce welfare benefits. Still, although Clinton reduced the size of the federal work force, the government continued to play a crucial role in the nation's economy. Most of the major 37

innovations of the New Deal, and a good many of the Great Society, remained in place. And the Federal Reserve system continued to regulate the overall pace of economic activity, with a watchful eye for any signs of renewed inflation. The economy, meanwhile, turned in an increasingly healthy performance as the 1990s progressed. With the fall of the Soviet Union and Eastern European communism in the late 1980s, trade opportunities expanded greatly. Technological developments brought a wide range of sophisticated new electronic products. Innovations in telecommunications and computer networking spawned a vast computer hardware and software industry and revolutionized the way many industries operate. The economy grew rapidly, and corporate earnings rose rapidly.