One of the themes of the Democratic National Convention was about how when Bill Clinton was president, we had a great economy, and achieved a balanced budget, and Clinton is a Democrat, and Barack Obama is a Democrat, so therefore, if you want the same types of policies we saw during the Clinton years that gave us said great economy and balanced budget, vote for Obama.
What Clinton failed to mention is that his policies were almost to the complete opposite of what we've seen from President Obama and what President Obama is proposing. Bill Clinton tried, initially, to govern as a left-wing Democrat. He signed a tax increase, pushed for government healthcare ("HillaryCare"), pushed for allowing gays to openly serve in the military, and signed the Assault Weapons Ban. This caused a backlash, and the Congress switched to being controlled by the Republicans for the first time in four decades, led by Newt Gingrich. Bill Clinton then pivoted, and made the statement, "The era of Big Government is over."
His "pivot" essentially consisted of going on to govern like a conservative Republican. First on the agenda was welfare reform. Bill Clinton actually vetoed this two times, but the Republicans in Congress kept sending it back up to him until he finally signed it. To say it was controversial was an understatement. The Republicans had to use the reconciliation process to pass it (a questionable process I'd imagine as the Republicans railed over the Democrats using it to pass Obamacare), the Democratic party was very much against it, and some prominent members of the social welfare bureaucracy resigned over it (two members of HHS), saying it would be disastrous (it wasn't, as the economy being healthy, the people then went out and got jobs). It is very interesting how Bill Clinton talked about welfare reform at the DNC, as he made it sound like it was his program. It was a Republican piece of legislation that he had to be convinced to sign after multiple vetoes.
Then there was the completion of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. Clinton at first did not like NAFTA. It had been started by Ronald Reagan, but Bill ended up completing it and regarding it as one of his great accomplishments. Democrats and their various special interest groups have of course always hated the bill (unions in particular). Belief in free-trade tends to be a more right-wing thing. Both Hillary and Barack Obama ran against NAFTA in 2008.
Bill Clinton also signed a "tax cut for the rich" when he signed a capital gains tax rate cut in 1997 (the rate was reduced from 28% down to 20%). And then in 1999, he signed the Financial Services Modernization Act, also known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which removed the decades-long barrier that had existed between investment banks and commercial banks.
To claim that it is Obama who has the policies similar to what we saw under Bill Clinton during the 1990s 1994-and on is engaging in a huge degree of historical revisionism I'd say. President Romney has some real low-hanging fruit here I think with which to go after the Obama campaign, and I am surprised that he hasn't made any speeches outlining just the above to crowds. It seems though that he and his campaign are doing the same things that John McCain did during his own campaign in 2008, i.e. to ignore all the low-hanging fruit that exists with which to go after President Obama. President Obama himself has most definitely not minced anything in going after Romney, doing everything they can to paint him as an evil, horrible man.
No comments:
Post a Comment