2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Bill Clinton’s True Legacy: Outsourcer-in-Chief [View all]merrily
(45,251 posts)lobbied hard. The Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (that may not be the exact name), for which he and Greenspan also lobbied hard, left mortgage derivatives unregulated. In turn, that led, by 2008, to near economic collapse of the US and worse in a number of European nations, not to mention many foreclosures in that economy. For that particular toxic financial cake, repeal of Glass Steagall was only the icing. However, both those bills were instrumental in the "too big to fail" debacles.
As though that were no enough, there were also DADT, DOMA, "ending welfare as we know it," the Telecommunications Act, turning the White House into the Re-Elect Bill Clinton Historic Inn at taxpayer expense, trade agreements, bombing Iraq, turning the Democratic Party into the "New Democrat" Party (their term, not mine), losing Congress, perjury leading to impeachment and more. (I always leave out some doozies, so I've stopped trying to be inclusive.) Tried to mess with OASDI, too, but didn't quite make it. (Bowles, from his administration, did, however, get to co-head the Cat Food Commission that Obama appointed.)
In fairness, there were also positives. I will leave it to others to decide whether those outweighed the negatives and whether we have Congress or Bubba to thank for them. (As an aside, until Hillary, I'd never seen a First Lady take credit for bills Congress passed during her husband's administration.)