Replies

The only real accomplishments Clinton can take credit for is signing GOP bills after 1995.

He tried the Mediscare approach and hurt Newt. Big Deal. The GOP got it's slower increase in spending and Clinton ran on the projected surpluses.

Ditto welfare reform. He fought it, fought it, fought it and vetoed it twice. Then he signed it and took all the credit for it's later success after saying at the 1996 convention he'd "fix it".

Now the Democrats talk of all those "surpluses" the Dems had like they are now the fiscally responsible ones. There was only ONE year of a surplus, the rest were projections and then the stock market burst and the economy downturned to a recession and then the uncertainty of 2000 followed by 9/11 and the corporate scandals that were the result of the market burst and fraud.

And don't forget the effect his penis had on the markets because he was impeached.

Clinton and then Gore in 2000 liked to talk of peace and prosperity. As we now know, both were fake. The peace was fake as Clinton ignored all the attacks builiding up to 9/11, mostly because only military personnel were dying. And the prosperity was fake because of the lies told by corporations under a lax SEC and campaign money to the Clinton's. Bob Novak had a good column a couple years back about how the economic numbers were fudged and overstated. Then you subtract the lies of WorldComm, Global Crossings, etc. and you don't get such a rosy picture.

Even the unemployment figure that around 1998-1999 went to 4% was put into question and found wanting in some of their assumptions. Knowing Clinton, they used the household survey while they all today whine about they payroll survey. (question: why does the government do these separate surveys and publish their different numbers knowing all politicians and pundits will pick and choose them? Are we being manipulated? Do they put out conflicting data just to argue about it and make us think they are doing something?)

It was all a house of cards.

It was all a house of cards.

btt

Bush actually did a very shrewd thing. He embraced the "surplus" to make his tax cut case. If we had that much "surplus" then, by definition, the government was taking too much money. Bush is using the Reagan approach of starving the beast.