From a Wall Street Journal column by Gerald F. Seib headlined “After Three Stormy Decades, Some Reasons to Find Optimism”:

This column was born 29 years ago this spring. The times weren’t exactly simple then, though they may seem that way in the rearview mirror.

President Bill Clinton had just taken office after an election in which he, a Democrat, won the states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia, among others. (Let that sink in for a minute.) The Soviet Union had dissolved, the Cold War was over and the U.S. was headed for a period of peace and prosperity. Within five years the federal budget would be in surplus, thanks to actual bipartisan stewardship in Congress.