Bill Clinton Presidency = Poor Economic Management

[michiganmoon]

Originally Posted by MTAtech

Here is unemployment. Clinton was President from 1992 to Jan. 2000. He inherited unemployment near 8% and it continuously feel and reached 4%. His unemployment rate was better than his predecessor; and better than his successor:



GDP growth rate. Stronger than his predecessor; stronger than his successor. Average 3.8%:


Government Revenue and Spending.
Real government revenue per capita rose throughout Clinton's presidency. It dropped when GW Bush cut taxes. Real government revenue per capita has not been higher since the last year of the Clinton tax-rates, 2000. Real spending per capita was held constant:

....

Deficits and Debt:

....

For a more comprehensive list of charts, click here:
The Clinton economy, in charts

How anyone can characterize Clinton's economy as "poor economic management" is absurd.

You deliberately ignored my points and brought up points that are pretty much irrelevant. Clinton is arguably not responsible for either of the 2 points you brought up and they ignore Clinton's disastrous long term policies. No one is saying that Clinton failed across the board. I am saying that Clinton (often with the help of his congress) put in place policies that were harmful. You are ignoring this and focusing on cherry picked data that may have nothing to do with his policies and ignoring the policies that he put in place that clearly harmed the country's economy.

If you believed Clinton was a good president for the economy - you would try to address the long term damage that he did below.


1) Granting permanent most favored nation status to China for trade and pushing China into the WTO = DISASTROUS. The result has been increased trade deficit and increased outsourcing. Clinton viciously attacked anyone who claimed what did happen would happen. Even some liberals are now recognizing this damage.

2) The GOP congress and Clinton deregulated by repealing Glass-Stegall = DISASTROUS. Clinton was "proud" to sign this bill into law, had vocalized years before that he would support the action, and encouraged Democrats to vote for it. Obama has blamed this for the current mess we are in.

3) Enacting NAFTA with bipartisan support = DISASTROUS. Many people feel as if this hurt the economy and made many Mexican farmers unemployed, some of which moved here.

4) The Housing Bubble started in 1998 = DISASTROUS. Policies in the 1990s allowed this to happen. Bush can be blamed for allowing it to grow bigger and not cleaning it up (it still isn't cleaned up), but it was born in the Clinton presidency.

5) The NASDAQ Dot Com Bubble burst right before he left office = DISASTROUS. This index still hasn't recovered to its high. The government encouraged this bubble under Clinton's leadership.

6) The Bush Sr. recession ended before he took office and he left a recession for the next president = Not Good. Declining industrial investment and other indicators all down in his final months.

7) There was no surplus that was passed to the next president, this myth was a rosy projection that assumed absurdly large growth, no NASDAQ bubble, and no housing bubble = Not Good.

8) Every Fiscal Year under Clinton saw a rise in the national debt, the "surplus" was from spending several government program money now = Not Good.


P.S. Public Debt ignores intragovernmental debt, which is real debt owed to real people. Like Social Security, Military Pensions, Civil Service Trust Fund, and etc.

[adiosToreador]

Originally Posted by michiganmoon

8) Every Fiscal Year under Clinton saw a rise in the national debt, the "surplus" was from spending several government program money now.


Bill Clinton's presidency contributed to today's economic woes.

Taking from the wikipedia page of Bill Clinton's Presidency (with sources down at the bottom of the wiki page to corroborate this):

The surplus in fiscal year 2000 was $237 billion—the third consecutive surplus and the largest surplus ever.

I'm not saying you're wrong or anything like that, but it's important to take note of the surpluses that occurred under the Clinton Administration.

[michiganmoon]

Originally Posted by adiosToreador

Taking from the wikipedia page of Bill Clinton's Presidency (with sources down at the bottom of the wiki page to corroborate this):



I'm not saying you're wrong or anything like that, but it's important to take note of the surpluses that occurred under the Clinton Administration.

As you can see per the link I provided from the US Dept. of Treasury, the National Debt has risen every single Fiscal Year since 1957.

Look at the national debt and tell me what Fiscal Year under Clinton saw the national debt shrink.

As I said, the "surplus" was from spending money from Social Security, Military Pensions, Civil Service Trust Fund, and etc... Then tell me, how can we have a true surplus as the national debt increases?


Perhaps, you would understand this better if I made an analogy...

-Your household had a total of $65K in take home pay this year
-You spent a total of $80K this year
-You took out $20K loan from your 401K to buy a boat, this money has to be paid back eventually with interest
-Your total household debt increased by $-15K this year

Which answer is more correct:

A) You had a surplus this year of $5K ($65K in take home pay + $20K 401K loan -$80K in expenses) and you consider the boat for free...

OR

B) You had a deficit this year of $-15K



P.S. As I have previously pointed out, Clinton said he opposed a balanced budget even AFTER the GOP won control of the House campaigning on balancing the budget.