Posted on 12/03/2012 4:11:17 PM PST by raptor22
Fiscal Policy: Talk of Clinton-era tax rates ignores the fact that the former president, working with a GOP Congress, cut spending as a share of GDP and produced four balanced budgets by focusing on growth, not spending.
Even as he pushes $150 billion in new "stimulus" spending, President Obama argues that to avoid the fiscal cliff we must return to Clinton-era tax rates for wealthy households, with a top marginal rate of 39.6% vs. the Bush-era 35%. Clinton's was an age of balanced budgets and economic growth.
But it was also an era of budgetary restraint in which both parties, not just the GOP, still produced budgets.
It was one, too, in which a Republican Congress led by House Speaker Newt Gingrich produced welfare reform, killed the precursor to cap and trade — Bill Clinton's BTU tax — and stopped ObamaCare's predecessor, HillaryCare, dead in its tracks.
As the Cato Institute's Steve H. Hanke points out, when President Clinton took office in 1993, government expenditures were 22.1% of GDP. When he departed in 2000, the federal government's share of the economy had been squeezed to a low of 18.2%, a decline of 3.9 percentage points. No other modern president has even come close (see table).
Under Clinton, federal spending averaged 19.8% of GDP. In contrast, spending under Obama over the past four years has averaged 24.4% of GDP.
Revenues from Clinton-era tax rates were actually used to pay down the national debt and produce four successive budget surpluses. Obama's tax increases will simply fund new spending.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
Clinton never balanced a budget, they were PROJECTED budgets, THE CUTS NEVER HAPPENED>
We don’t have Clinton era tax rates.
We do have Medicare part D (unfunded).
We do have a war still going on (unfunded).
We do have Obama Care. (funded by taxes on us-—sigh).
We have to have major slashing to get to the Clinton era spending %. Which to me...is just the start. Spending needs to go down even farther.
And why may I ask is Congress in session so few days in 2013? Do they plan on doing everything the first week of Jan then just rest on their laurels? If so, why don’t they just get paid by the day? Why the hey do they get generous health care and pensions for working so few days. What a load.
Let’s get going.
I agree 100% with the basic point. I’d like to see the GOP and the Dems negotiate from Clinton’s last budget. We should take his 2001 budget, adjust it up for inflation and population growth, and use that as a baseline. Then, any line item could be increased, if necessary, with a 2/3 vote on that single item, or decreased by a simple majority. That would be a big start on reigning in the out of control federal government.
obama Should Return To Serving clinton Coffee.
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