Bill Clinton’s 1996 SOTU: ‘Era of Big Government Is Over’
The U.S. had endured a series of government shutdowns when Clinton declared in this address, “The era of big government is over. But we cannot go back to the time when our citizens were left to fend for themselves. Instead, we must go forward as one America, one nation working together to meet the challenges we face.” Columnist Ronald Brownstein wrote that month, “No other sentence in [Bill Clinton’s] 61-minute speech so dramatically captured the ideological climate that defines American politics – or the narrow line Clinton hopes to walk to reelection.” Clinton’s approval rating jumped from 46 percent to 52 percent post-speech and he was reelected that fall with 49.2 percent of the popular vote over Bob Dole and Ross Perot.
