Promises, Promises

With the end of the Clinton presidency’s first 100 days, Stephen Moore and David J. Byrd thought this might be a good time to revisit some of Mr. Clinton’s more memorable pronouncements. We excerpt from their compilation for the House Republican Conference.

Candidate Bill Clinton, Florida primary, March 27, 1992: “I think President Bush played racial politics with the Haitian refugees. I wouldn’t be shipping those poor people back.”

President-elect Clinton in a radio address, Jan. 14, 1993: “The practice of returning those who fled Haiti by boat will continue, for the time being, after I become president. Those who do leave Haiti… by boat will be stopped and directly returned by the United States Coast Guard.”

Candidate Clinton, campaign ad, January 1992: “I’ve offered a comprehensive plan to get our economy moving again… It starts with a tax cut for the middle class.”

Candidate Clinton, January 19, 1992: “I want to make it very clear that this middle-class tax cut, in my view, is central to any attempt we’re going to make to have a short-term economic strategy.”

President-elect Clinton, Jan. 14, 1993: “From New Hampshire forward, for reasons that absolutely mystify me, the press thought the most important issue in the race was the middle-class tax cut. I never did meet any voter who thought that.”

President Clinton, first Oval Office address, Feb. 15, 1993: “I had hoped to invest n your [the middle class’s] future… without asking more of you. And I’ve worked harder than I’ve ever worked in my life to meet that goal. But I can’t.”

Candidate Clinton, last presidential debate, Lansing, Mich., Oct. 19, 1992: “The real mistake he [President George H.W. Bush] made was the ‘read my lips’ promise in the first place. You just can’t promise something like that just to get elected if you know there’s a good chance that circumstances may overtake you.”

President-elect Clinton, press conference, Jan. 14, 1993: “We have a structural deficit that is too high. The American people would think I was foolish if I said I will not respond to changing circumstances.”

Candidate Clinton, Sept. 8, 1992: “The only people who will pay more income taxes are the wealthiest 2%, those living in households making over $200,000 a year.”

Tax Foundation analysis of Clinton budget, February 1993: “The Clinton budget will raise the top marginal income tax rate starting at $115,000 in individual income.”

President Clinton, at a press conference, March 23, 1993: “Let me say, you will read the [fiscal stimulus] bill for years in vain and not find those [pork-barrel] projects.”

Line items on President Clinton’s stimulus bill included: $1.4 million for drawings of 28 significant structures and engineering achievements (page 10, line 10). The budget justification document also contained funding for fish atlases, white water rafting, and the construction of a casino.

Candidate Clinton, Time magazine interview, July 20, 1992: “When I began the campaign, the projected deficit was $250 billion, not $400 billion.”

President Clinton in a televised “town hall” February 10, 1993: “I have some bad news… The deficit is $50 billion a year bigger than I was told before the election.”

From the Congressional Budget Office analysis of Clinton budget, March 1993: Net new taxes: $267 billion. Net spending cuts: $55 billion. That is, 83% taxes, 17% spending cuts.

President Clinton, in a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Feb. 23, 1993: “I’m sure – after almost five weeks in office – that there are more [budget] cuts coming.”

George Stephanopoulos, the next day: “The president had no specific cuts in mind and no schedule for making them.”

President Clinton, State of the Union address, Feb. 17, 1993: “Because small business has created such a high percentage of all the new jobs in our nation over the last 10 to 15 years, our plan includes the boldest targeted incentives for small business in history.”

National Federation of Independent Business, replying to the Clinton economic plan, March 16, 1993: “The plan proposes raising taxes significantly on the very segments of society that create new jobs – small business-owners… 80% of businesses in America are unincorporated and pay taxes as Individuals.”

President Clinton, on funding health care, March 24, 1993: “We are looking at a lot of different options, but the last thing I think we ought to do, the last place we ought to look, is to ask the employers and employees of American, who are paying too much for their health care right now to pay more.”

The Washington Times, April 23, 1993: “Mrs. Clinton told the Senate Finance Committee that the White House has dropped its opposition to taxing employees’ benefits and will recommend taxing the portion of those benefits exceeding the cost of a basic package of health benefits.”

President Clinton, Feb. 19, 1993: “I did not mean to float a trial balloon about a national sales tax [to pay for a new health plan]. It’s not under consideration, at this time. [That’s] 10 to 15 years away.”

Deputy Budget Director Alice Rivlin, on funding health care reform, April 14, 1993: “A VAT is clearly a possible candidate. I think a VAT has a good deal to recommend it.”

President Clinton, Feb. 22, 1993: “For years there have been those who say we ought to reduce the deficit by raising the gas tax a whole lot. That’s fine if you live in the city and ride mass transit to work. It’s not so good if you live in the country and drive yourself to work… So I rejected a big gas tax.”

New York Times, same day: “The new [BTU] tax would raise the retail price [of gasoline] by 10 cents a gallon.”

President Clinton, in “A Vision of Change for America,” released Feb. 17, 1993: “Our plan calls for higher fees for grazing, first time royalties on gold and other hard rock mining and elimination of below-cost timber sales on national forests.”

Washington Post headline, April 2, 1993: “Clinton Criticized for Policy Shift on Public Lands.”

President Clinton, before the National Governors Associate, Feb. 2, 1993: “I believe two years after a training program is completed, you hae to ask people to take a job… There must be a certain time beyond which people don’t draw a check for doing nothing when they can be doing something.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, Feb. 3, 1993: “[President Clinton’s idea of] requiring recipients to take a job after two years on welfare has been interpreted too narrowly.”

Candidate Clinton, in “Putting People First” (June 1992): “I will attack violent crime by putting another 100,000 police officers on the street.”

The Washington Post, April 16, 1993: “Tucked away inside the Justice Department budget was $50 million for community policing grants, just enough money, budget documents say, to hire 3,000 new police officers over two years, a mere 3 percent of the President’s goal.”

Candidate Clinton, in May 1992 issue of Fortune magazine: “I don’t like to use the word sacrifice.”

President Clinton, inaugural address, January 20, 1993: “It will not be easy. It will require ‘sacrifice’.”

Candidate Clinton, on “Good Morning America,” June 23, 1992: “If I’m elected, I’ll have the bills ready the day after I’m inaugurated. I’ll send them to Congress and we’ll have a 100-day period.”

Spokeswoman Dee Dee Myers, Jan. 12, 1993: “People of the press are expecting to have some 100-day program. We never ever had one.”

Candidate Clinton, June 23, 1992 on “Good Morning America”: “My first one hundred days will be the most productive in modern history.”

This was a compilation op-ed printed in the Wall Street Journal at the conclusion of Bill Clinton's first 100 Days in office. I have no link; I don't think the WSJ was online back then. I've transcribed this from a clip I've kept over the years. I thought Freepers may find it instructive that the Dem playbook often just circulates from one administration to the next... But it appears President Obama learned lessons from Bubba.

Didn’t you forget Midnight Basketball? V’s wife.

“But it appears President Obama learned lessons from Bubba.”

Both of them play from the same book. Neither has any bedrock values other than increasing their power and the power of the State.

Rush was right yesterday at CPAC. What Obama is proposing is not new, it's not change, and it's not hope!

Ann Coulter also read from some of Clinton's campaign lines where he talked a blue streak about "change."

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