posted October 07, 2012 12:53 PM            

Reagan raised taxes. This is factually true, and provable virtually anywhere one would look.

What I stated about Clinton is true as well. The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 was passed without Republican support.

quote:

---

So acoustic, don't you attempt to revise history. I was there and even if you had been, you couldn't have analyzed your way out of a wet paper bag because you still can't.

---

You "being" there doesn't qualify you as knowing something about it. You routinely get things wrong. There's no reason for anyone to suspect that you had a better grasp of reality then than you do now. I "wasn't" there, but I'm a hell of a researcher, and if you want to prove me wrong about something, you'd better step up your game.

quote:

---

You can't spend your way to national prosperty or spend your way out of national bankruptcy.

---

Reagan spent and spent, and as I said earlier added to the debt far in excess of what Obama's done...at least as a matter of percentages.

posted October 07, 2012 03:02 PM            

reagan raised the capital gains rate, didn't he? he said it was "crazy" for a bus driver to pay a higher percentage than millionaires. in fact he said a lot of things obama has said.

he RAISED the corporate tax too, several times.

but then when reagan came in the tax rates were higher than they are today. JFK lowered taxes too, from 70%..in fact he lowered them a whole lot more than reagan did.

posted October 08, 2012 09:40 AM            

Those tax increases and trying to ram HillaryCare down America's throat led to the election defeat of democrats in the 1994 elections, the election of Republicans AND THE TAX CUTS, CUTS IN GOVERNMENT SPENDING AND CUTS IN GOVERNMENT REGULATION I just told you about because Clinton had no choice but to adopt Republican bills and try to take credit for the good economy they produced. Later, Clinton working with the Republicans...and Newt, balanced the budget and produced a budget surplus. Did you really think you could get away with your bullshiit with me acoustic?

You attempted to present a false narrative here by mangling the time sequence of how events unfolded during the Clinton administration.

The US economy took off AFTER Republicans won the HOUSE in 1994 and FORCED Clinton to cut taxes, cut government spending and cut business regulation; not before and sure as hell not as a result of Clinton raising taxes in 1993 that no Republicans voted for.

posted October 08, 2012 09:55 AM            

Obama's Re-Election Case Rests On 5 Phony Claims
Thu, Oct 04 2012
By JOHN MERLINE

In making his case for re-election in the face of historically high unemployment and sluggish growth, President Obama has a simple and straightforward argument.

Things were terrible when I arrived, he says, thanks to Bush-era policies of tax cuts and deregulation. We stopped the decline, but the ditch was so deep that it will take time to get out. Still, we are making progress, even if it isn't as fast as everyone would like.

So the last thing we want to do is return to the failed Bush policies that, he says, drove us into the ditch.

That argument appears to be working. More people continue to blame Bush than Obama for the current poor state of affairs, and some surveys show that consumer confidence has recently increased.

But each part of Obama's argument is based on claims that are not accurate:

• Bush tax cuts and deregulation caused the recession.
At a campaign rally, Obama said Romney is "just churning out the same ideas that we saw in the decade before I took office . . . the same tax cuts and deregulation agenda that helped get us into this mess in the first place."

It's a standard Obama talking point. But it's not true. Bush's tax cuts did not cause the last recession.

In fact, once they were fully in effect in 2003, they sparked stronger growth — generating more than 8 million new jobs over the next four years, and GDP growth averaging close to 3%.

Those tax cuts didn't explode the deficit, either, as Obama frequently claims. Deficits steadily declined after 2003, until the recession hit.

Nor was Bush a deregulator. Conservative Heritage Foundation's regulation expert James Gattuso concluded, after reviewing Bush's record, that "regulation grew substantially during the Bush years."

Even the Washington Post's fact-checker, Glenn Kessler, gave Obama's claim three out of four "Pinocchios," saying "it is time for the Obama campaign to retire this talking point, no matter how much it seems to resonate with voters."

What did cause the economic crisis? The housing bubble. And that, in turn, was the result of a determined federal effort to boost homeownership by, among other things, pressuring banks to lower lending standards.

• I stopped a second Great Depression.

Another frequent Obama claim is that "we did all the right things to prevent a Great Depression." But this, too, is false.

The economy had pretty much hit bottom by the time Obama took office, and long before his policies were in place. The worst declines in monthly GDP and employment, in fact, occurred before he was even sworn in.

What's more, the recovery officially started less than four months after Obama signed the stimulus into effect, when only a small fraction of the stimulus money was actually in the economy. Plus, other Obama economic interventions came either after the recession had ended — including his GM (GM) bailout — or have been widely judged to be failures.

When economists Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi tried to determine what ended the so-called Great Recession, they said President Bush's TARP program and actions by the Federal Reserve were "substantially more effective" than anything Obama had done.

• My policies are working.
In his recent two-minute campaign ad, Obama claimed that "as a nation we are moving forward again." But while the overall economy has grown somewhat since Obama's recovery started more than three years ago, several other important indicators have actually gone backward.

Median household incomes, for example, have dropped $3,000 — a 5.7% decline — since the Obama recovery started. Income inequality has reached new heights.

There are 659,000 more long-term unemployed than there were in June 2009, and the share of people working has dropped to levels not seen in 30 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Meanwhile, there are 11.8 million more people on food stamps and nearly 2.7 million more in poverty than when the Obama recovery started.

And while Obama likes to tout the fact that 4 million net new jobs have been created since February 2010, what he doesn't say is that most of those are low-wage jobs that replaced better-paying jobs lost during the recession.

• A slow recovery was inevitable.
Obama dismisses the slow and painful recovery by saying that he knew the road would be long. "I always believed that this was a long-term project (and) that it was going to take more than a year," he has said. "It was going to take more than two years. It was going to take more than one term."

The reason, Obama argues, is that recoveries from financial crises are always slow. "After a financial crisis, typically there's a bigger drag on the economy for a longer period of time," he said. But Obama didn't trot out this excuse until his own economic policies failed to produce the growth he had promised.

Obama's first budget, released in February 2009, predicted "rapid growth" that would "push down the unemployment rate to 5.3% by the end of 2013." In March 2009, Obama boasted that "my long-term projections are highly optimistic."

In August 2009, his economists predicted economic growth rates above 4% this year and next. In April 2010, Vice President Biden predicted job growth of "between 250,000 and 500,000 a month."

It was only after the actual results starting coming in far below expectations that Obama started laying blame on the financial crisis and asking for more time.

And his claim that financial crises inevitably lead to sluggish recoveries is at least open to debate.

While some economists make that claim, others dispute it. A November 2011 paper by economists at Rutgers University and the Cleveland Fed, for example, concluded that "recessions associated with financial crises are generally followed by rapid recoveries."

• Nobody could have done any better.
One of Bill Clinton's biggest applause lines at the Democratic convention was when he said that "no president — not me or any of my predecessors — could have repaired all the damage in just four years."

But historically, deeper recessions have been followed by faster recoveries.

"You can't find a single deep recession that has been followed by a moderate recovery," is how Dean Maki, chief U.S. economist at Barclays Capital, put it in August 2009.

Yet despite the depth of the downturn, Obama has presided over the slowest economic recovery since the Great Depression.

In fact, what has been noteworthy about Obama's recovery is how frequently it has "unexpectedly" underperformed economists' projections.

To get a sense of how dismal Obama's recovery has been, consider this: Since World War II, there have been 10 recoveries before Obama's. Had Obama's merely performed as well the average of all those recoveries, the nation's GDP would be a staggering $1.2 trillion bigger than it is today, and 7.9 million more people would have jobs.

http://news.investors.com/100312-627990-presidents-case-for- re-election-rests-on-five-claims-all-phony.aspx?p=full

Conclusion, O'Bomber is an economic dunce who can't even produce an average recovery, average economic growth, average employment and average growth in the GDP.

posted October 08, 2012 03:42 PM            

quote:

---

Yeah, Clinton's tax increases were the biggest in US history and just after he won election in 1992 promising he wouldn't raise taxes to fund his big government agenda...a welfare state

---

How many times do we have to point out the lunacy of claiming a Democrat wants a "welfare state?" That's just plain stupid. Democrats grow up here in America, too, you know. We're all brought up in Capitalism. The notion that someone is ever going to up-end that tradition is nonsensical.

With regard to Clinton:

ANYONE, and I mean ANYONE, can look up and see for themselves the history of what Clinton did.

First, let's go over your revised history. First you said, "Clinton went with the Republican model...after he lost the House in the 1992 election." 1992 YOU said.

Now you say, "Those tax increases and trying to ram HillaryCare down America's throat led to the election defeat of democrats in the 1994 elections." 1994 YOU say now.

This is what deficits looked like under Clinton. Notice that the deficit reduced every year leading up to Republicans election in Congress.

The Clinton years showed the effects of a large tax increase that Clinton pushed through in his first year, and that Republicans incorrectly claim is the "largest tax increase in history." It fell almost exclusively on upper-income taxpayers. Clinton’s fiscal 1994 budget also contained some spending restraints. http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/

quote:

---

Did you really think you could get away with your bullshiit with me acoustic?

---

I think it's better for you to ask yourself that question.

quote:

---

You attempted to present a false narrative here by mangling the time sequence of how events unfolded during the Clinton administration.

---

I did no such thing. Let me repost what I said for you:

In 1997, he cut taxes. Not right after the 1992 election. In 1993 he passed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. Every Republican, and some Democrats did not vote for it.

quote:

---

The US economy took off AFTER Republicans won the HOUSE in 1994 and FORCED Clinton to cut taxes, cut government spending and cut business regulation; not before and sure as hell not as a result of Clinton raising taxes in 1993 that no Republicans voted for.

---

Also false. The U.S. economy was already taking off well in advance of Republicans winning the house. The recession ended March 1991. From there the longest recorded expansion in U.S. history took place.

quote:

---

You're as helpless and hopeless as your little Marxist Messiah O'Bomber who constantly spews horseshiiit and hopes no one calls him on it.

---

posted October 08, 2012 04:44 PM            

quote:

---

Things were terrible when I arrived, he says, thanks to Bush-era policies of tax cuts and deregulation. We stopped the decline, but the ditch was so deep that it will take time to get out. Still, we are making progress, even if it isn't as fast as everyone would like.

---

I don't personally recall Obama blaming deregulation, but it's plausible that this is his go-to line about the recession. The line obviously doesn't reflect the actual cause of the recession, so obviously it's merely a line crafted for political expediency. It should be fairly obvious that we don't have to go into Bush's tax cuts or his deregulation policies to discount those lines.

quote:

---

Romney is "just churning out the same ideas that we saw in the decade before I took office . . . the same tax cuts and deregulation agenda that helped get us into this mess in the first place."

---

This does make sense. Tax cuts did contribute to our deficit and debt, and both parties should be able to agree that more tax cuts will result in the same. Also, Romney has talked deregulation, so that is a viable critique as well. If the non-regulation of the mortgage industry that caused the Great Recession, then certainly deregulation of the financial sector shouldn't sit well with people.

quote:

---

Another frequent Obama claim is that "we did all the right things to prevent a Great Depression." But this, too, is false.

---

I would allow this statement to stand. I would say, however, that a philosophy of doing no harm to the economy has not allowed things to get MUCH worse, so in that sense a case can be made for heading off a "Great Depression."

I like the mentions of the RECOVERY in the article.

quote:

---

When economists Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi tried to determine what ended the so-called Great Recession, they said President Bush's TARP program and actions by the Federal Reserve were "substantially more effective" than anything Obama had done.

---

If Obama copied Bush on TARP, and we're going to credit Bush with TARP, but not credit Obama with TARP-like policies, then I think there's something wrong with the analysis.

quote:

---

several other important indicators have actually gone backward.

---

Well, barring actually distributing money to the masses, what exactly could Obama have done to help these people? This was the inevitable landing for this recession. Any solution proposed has been knocked down by the opposing party. That's not Obama's fault. That's any party that's unwilling to compromise for the greater good.

quote:

---

Obama's first budget, released in February 2009, predicted "rapid growth" that would "push down the unemployment rate to 5.3% by the end of 2013."

---

Not accurate. First, the quote doesn't exist. Second, this is the supposed "promise" that turned out to be an optimistic projection by the economists that were forecasting the effects of the stimulus. The number itself is 5.3% here, 5.2% according to the WSJ, and 5.6% according to other news agencies and bloggers.

quote:

---

In March 2009, Obama boasted that "my long-term projections are highly optimistic."

---

"…my focus has to be on the long term," he said. "And my long-term projections are highly optimistic, if we take care of some of these long-term structural problems."

Right. Inevitably, things will get better. They have to, and they always do. The point of the quote is not optimism, but rather working on the regulatory environment necessary to ensure these kinds of downturns don't happen again. Of course, it's also inevitable that these downturns will happen again as people forget about this crisis, and seek bigger gains through less regulation in the future.

quote:

---

And his claim that financial crises inevitably lead to sluggish recoveries is at least open to debate.

---

Hmmm...interesting way to say that. It implies an acceptance of the premise whilst suggesting different context.

quote:

---

While some economists make that claim, others dispute it.

---

Indeed. As such, one is free to believe either side.

quote:

---

"You can't find a single deep recession that has been followed by a moderate recovery," is how Dean Maki, chief U.S. economist at Barclays Capital, put it in August 2009.

---

This is the same Dean Maki responsible for this 2009 article?: Economy Poised for Surge, Says 'Most Accurate' Forecaster

It would appear that the quote used in Jwhop's article isn't upholding a debate about the possible recovery time financial crises warrant, but rather making a projection himself with regard to what he expected would happen. Read the article about Dean Maki's predictions in 2009.

Now, when did the European debt crisis begin? The fears started in late 2009. Where is this bit of context in Jwhop's article? Nowhere to be found.

Thus concludes my analysis of this critique.

posted October 09, 2012 11:39 AM            

Any fool can cut budget deficits..by raising taxes, grabbing business profits, crashing the economy, getting employees laid off, reducing government tax revenues, reducing GDP. Just ask the little Marxist Messiah who has managed to accomplish most of this by doing some of it and talking about doing other parts of it...raising taxes on jobs creators. God, what a maroon.

This shows what happened to unemployment after Republicans took over the US House of Representatives, forced fiscal sanity on Clinton and got government under control. Unemployment went down, the economy boomed and budget surpluses were produced. Further, working with Clinton, federal budgets were better than balanced for the first time in many years.

Clinton Administration Unemployment
1993 6.9
1994 6.1
New Republican House of Representatives After 2004 Elections
1995 5.6
1996 5.4
1997 4.9
1998 4.5
1999 4.2
2000 4.0
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104719.html

Now acoustic, this is your big chance to show off those wonderful analytical abilities you say you have but have so far failed to exhibit.

If everything was going swimmingly in the early years of the Clinton Administration...your premise...then why did voters all across America throw democrats out of the US House of Representatives after 40 straight years of democrat control/majority of the House of Representatives? Hmmmm???

posted October 09, 2012 12:17 PM            

quote:

---

Yeah acoustic, thanks for posting that chart which clearly shows the budget surpluses were produced AFTER Republicans were elected to the majority in the US House in 2004 and forced fiscal sanity on Kommander Korruption, aka, Bill Clinton.

---

Why would you try to spin what we can all see for ourselves? I mean how idiotic is that?

It shows very clearly that Clinton continued the tide set by George H.W. Bush in reducing the deficit. Republicans didn't have an extra special hand in it.

quote:

---

Any fool can cut budget deficits..by raising taxes, grabbing business profits, crashing the economy, getting employees laid off, reducing government tax revenues, reducing GDP.

---

Clinton did just ONE of those things.

I don't know why you put raising taxes and reducing revenue in the same sentence. Those are contradictory ideas.

quote:

---

This shows what happened to unemployment after Republicans took over the US House of Representatives, forced fiscal sanity on Clinton and got government under control. Unemployment went down, the economy boomed and budget surpluses were produced. Further, working with Clinton, federal budgets were better than balanced for the first time in many years.

---

Once again, Republicans were not the cause of the economic boom. It was already well underway before Republicans ever got into office.

Posting unemployment under Clinton only underscores the fact that it WASN'T Republicans. Where was the biggest drop? 1993-1994 when it dropped from 6.9 to 6.1. That eight-tenths exceeds every other drop.

quote:

---

Now acoustic, this is your big chance to show off those wonderful analytical abilities you say you have but have so far failed to exhibit.

---

Hilarious from the man who just undid his own argument.

quote:

---

If everything was going swimmingly in the early years of the Clinton Administration...your premise...then why did voters all across America throw democrats out of the US House of Representatives after 40 straight years of democrat control/majority of the House of Representatives? Hmmmm???

---

The usual: spin and people wanting a check on the President. The same reason this happens in many Presidencies.

quote:

---

Oh, and Foxy News RULES Cable News Networks and IS the most trusted Source for news among broadcast news sources.

---

posted October 09, 2012 01:15 PM            

"I don't know why you put raising taxes and reducing revenue in the same sentence. Those are contradictory ideas."...acoustic

These are not contradictory ideas acoustic. Raising taxes and reducing tax revenues to the government tracks seamlessly.

Here's another idea which leftist moron so called economists can't get through their thick skulls.

Reducing taxes increases tax revenues to the government.

Btw, your little Marxist Messiah fumbled the ball when Charlie Gibson questioned him on this very same subject..during the primary debates before the 2008 elections.

Bush reduced individual income taxes AND taxes on businesses and tax revenues to the federal government increased acoustic. In fact acoustic, the most tax revenue ever collected by the federal government was in the year 2007...right in the Bush Tax Cut years.

You don't know enough to talk to me about economic policy acoustic and neither do the morons you go to as sources for your nonsense.

The economic boom was not underway before Republicans took control of the House of Representatives.

Further, I notice you took a pass..punted acoustic on your big chance to show off your supposed analytical skills. Are you saving them for some special occasion? We haven't seen them yet!

Let me ask you again. Perhaps you didn't understand the question.

You say things were wonderful in the early years of the Clinton Administration. The sun was shining, the bees were buzzing, the birds were singing, the sky was blue and the cotton was high...so you say.

So why did voters all over America throw democrats out of the House of Representatives and give control of the House to Republicans for the 1st time in 40 years? Huh acoustic??

posted October 09, 2012 02:41 PM            

quote:

---

These are not contradictory ideas acoustic. Raising taxes and reducing tax revenues to the government tracks seamlessly.

Reducing taxes increases tax revenues to the government.

---

No. You have some crazy notion in your head that lowering taxes will necessarily and without exception raise revenues, which is false. Taxes are the lowest they've ever been, and revenue is quite low as well. Conversely, as we've spoken about Clinton, Clinton raised taxes, and the economy not only absorbed the raise without issue, but it also thrived.

You're once again trying to prove a causation that is false, and based on fantasy. Lowering taxes may raise revenues, but it also may not.

quote:

---

In fact acoustic, the most tax revenue ever collected by the federal government was in the year 2007...right in the Bush Tax Cut years.

---

Don't think you're going to get a pass on weasel language with me, Jwhop.

First of all, economists agree across the board that revenues would have been higher without the Bush tax cuts. http://www.factcheck.org/taxes/supply-side_spin.html

Secondly, as measured as a portion of the GDP it only ties for 16th at 18.5%, and that's going back to 1934.

You don't need to parrot Ed Gillespie.

quote:

---

You don't know enough to talk to me about economic policy acoustic and neither do the morons you go to as sources for your nonsense.

---

That's funny, Jwhop, considering the sources YOU parrot around here.

I know enough to call bullsh!t on most of the stuff you try to pull here. Yes, I do treat your mangling of facts as well as your misunderstanding of causation as stunts as it is very clear to the informed person that you're posting nonsense. You have all the same troubles you've always had including the notion that if you can only bullsh!t long enough, you can beat me. That's not the way things work.

quote:

---

The economic boom was not underway before Republicans took control of the House of Representatives.

---

Obviously it was, and nothing you've posted supports your assertions.

quote:

---

Further, I notice you took a pass..punted acoustic on your big chance to show off your supposed analytical skills. Are you saving them for some special occasion? We haven't seen them yet!

---

I didn't punt. I told you.

quote:

---

So why did voters all over America throw democrats out of the House of Representatives and give control of the House to Republicans for the 1st time in 40 years? Huh acoustic??

---

Same answer as last time:
The usual: spin and people wanting a check on the President. The same reason this happens in many Presidencies.

If you want more context, why don't you look it up. It wasn't the economy, stupid.

Further, if you think it was the economy, why is it that Bill Clinton won re-election? Your bad thinking can't account for that, can it? In fact, the new Republican majority stood off with Clinton in 1995 over the budget, and Clinton won. So much for your ideas on Republicans winning the economy for Clinton.

posted October 09, 2012 06:24 PM            

They just don't understand underlying principles of economics..free market economics, that is.

posted October 10, 2012 11:02 AM            

This was the tax policy followed by Jack Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton/Republican House and George W Bush.

It works every time it's done.

Now acoustic as for you personally. You simply don't know what you're talking about and you never do.

Your analysis gene is defective or missing altogether so I knew you would never be able to tell us why American voters all over America threw democrats out of the US House of Representatives in the elections of 1994 and turned the House over to Republicans for the first time in 40 years.

After promising to not raise taxes on the American people to fund his big government programs, Clinton..and his democrat cohorts concocted the biggest tax increase in US history and passed it into law...almost immediately after the election of 1992.

A rapid and out of control expansion of the federal government and federal programs ensued which enraged voters.

Clinton had just won election, an election he would not have had a chance of winning if many Republicans had not jumped ship and voted for Ross Perot after George H W Bush broke his promise and cut a deal with democrats to raise taxes. George H W Bush said..."Read my lips, no new taxes" and then promptly cut a deal to raise new taxes.

Ross Perot got 19% of the vote in the 1992 election..most of it Republicans who were not merely disenchanted with Bush but thoroughly pis$ed at Bush for breaking his word. Without those Republicans voting for Perot, Clinton had no chance of being elected in 1992.

Against that backdrop, here comes Clinton, elected without a majority btw, promising as candidate Clinton to not raise taxes to fund his big government programs and promptly hands Americans the biggest tax increase in history and promptly expands the federal government and federal government programs.

The reaction of American voters was predictable. How utterly stupid since Clinton had just witnessed what happened to George H W Bush for breaking his word..."read my lips..no new taxes".

If Clinton had been on the ballot for reelection in the 1994 election, he would have been history right then but he wasn't up for reelection. But all those democrats who helped Clinton craft those record breaking tax increases and expand the role of the federal government were up for reelection in 1994.

They were history and they got thrown out of the House of Representatives after 40 straight years of democrat control of the US House.

Republicans ran the 1994 elections on "The Contract With America".

"As Republican Members of the House of Representatives and as citizens seeking to join that body we propose not just to change its policies, but even more important, to restore the bonds of trust between the people and their elected representatives. That is why, in this era of official evasion and posturing, we offer instead a detailed agenda for national renewal, a written commitment with no fine print.
This year's election offers the chance, after four decades of one-party control, to bring to the House a new majority that will transform the way Congress works. That historic change would be the end of government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public's money. It can be the beginning of a Congress that respects the values and shares the faith of the American family.

Like Lincoln, our first Republican president, we intend to act "with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right." To restore accountability to Congress. To end its cycle of scandal and disgrace. To make us all proud again of the way free people govern themselves.

On the first day of the 104th Congress, the new Republican majority will immediately pass the following major reforms, aimed at restoring the faith and trust of the American people in their government:

•FIRST, require all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply equally to the Congress;
•SECOND, select a major, independent auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste, fraud or abuse;
•THIRD, cut the number of House committees, and cut committee staff by one-third;
•FOURTH, limit the terms of all committee chairs;
•FIFTH, ban the casting of proxy votes in committee;
•SIXTH, require committee meetings to be open to the public;
•SEVENTH, require a three-fifths majority vote to pass a tax increase;
•EIGHTH, guarantee an honest accounting of our Federal Budget by implementing zero base-line budgeting.

Thereafter, within the first 100 days of the 104th Congress, we shall bring to the House Floor the following bills, each to be given full and open debate, each to be given a clear and fair vote and each to be immediately available this day for public inspection and scrutiny."

Notice what was "JOB ONE" in the Contract With America acoustic...Job # 1.

"1. THE FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT: A balanced budget/tax limitation amendment and a legislative line-item veto to restore fiscal responsibility to an out- of-control Congress, requiring them to live under the same budget constraints as families and businesses.

2. THE TAKING BACK OUR STREETS ACT: An anti-crime package including stronger truth-in- sentencing, "good faith" exclusionary rule exemptions, effective death penalty provisions, and cuts in social spending from this summer's "crime" bill to fund prison construction and additional law enforcement to keep people secure in their neighborhoods and kids safe in their schools.

3. THE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT: Discourage illegitimacy and teen pregnancy by prohibiting welfare to minor mothers and denying increased AFDC for additional children while on welfare, cut spending for welfare programs, and enact a tough two-years-and-out provision with work requirements to promote individual responsibility.

4. THE FAMILY REINFORCEMENT ACT: Child support enforcement, tax incentives for adoption, strengthening rights of parents in their children's education, stronger child pornography laws, and an elderly dependent care tax credit to reinforce the central role of families in American society.

5. THE AMERICAN DREAM RESTORATION ACT: A S500 per child tax credit, begin repeal of the marriage tax penalty, and creation of American Dream Savings Accounts to provide middle class tax relief.

6. THE NATIONAL SECURITY RESTORATION ACT: No U.S. troops under U.N. command and restoration of the essential parts of our national security funding to strengthen our national defense and maintain our credibility around the world.

7. THE SENIOR CITIZENS FAIRNESS ACT: Raise the Social Security earnings limit which currently forces seniors out of the work force, repeal the 1993 tax hikes on Social Security benefits and provide tax incentives for private long-term care insurance to let Older Americans keep more of what they have earned over the years.

8. THE JOB CREATION AND WAGE ENHANCEMENT ACT: Small business incentives, capital gains cut and indexation, neutral cost recovery, risk assessment/cost-benefit analysis, strengthening the Regulatory Flexibility Act and unfunded mandate reform to create jobs and raise worker wages.

9. THE COMMON SENSE LEGAL REFORM ACT: "Loser pays" laws, reasonable limits on punitive damages and reform of product liability laws to stem the endless tide of litigation.

10. THE CITIZEN LEGISLATURE ACT: A first-ever vote on term limits to replace career politicians with citizen legislators.

Further, we will instruct the House Budget Committee to report to the floor and we will work to enact additional budget savings, beyond the budget cuts specifically included in the legislation described above, to ensure that the Federal budget deficit will be less than it would have been without the enactment of these bills.

Respecting the judgment of our fellow citizens as we seek their mandate for reform, we hereby pledge our names to this Contract with America."

Now acoustic, you can wheeze, whine, screech and bloviate about how wonderful the early years of the Clinton administration were but American voters didn't agree with your analysis. Voters couldn't get Kommander Korruption in the elections of 1994 but they sure as hell could get his democrat pals in the US House and they did.

Laying all the bloviating bullshiiit aside acoustic, the rest is history and easily documented as to what happened. Taxes and budgets came under control of the US House..Newt. Clinton was forced to deal with Newt and House Republicans. The economy boomed, jobs were created in the private sector, government was trimmed, regulations were trimmed, tax revenues to government increased as the tax base was broadened and incomes rose; the federal budget WAS balanced and a budget surplus was created and Bill Clinton was reelected in 1996.

Bill Clinton was headed for defeat in 1996 and he owes his reelection to 2 people..3 if you count himself for being smart enough to take good advice.

First to Newt Gingrich for being tough enough to insist Clinton change his big government model and adopt the Republican model of tax cuts, smaller, sane government and reduced business regulation.

Second to Dick Morris who took Clinton aside and told him to move to the middle..towards Republicans..and then to take credit for the success when it happened...and it did happen.

And third, to himself for being smart enough to see the good sense in the good advice he was getting because he knew he was toast if he didn't.

Unlike your little Marxist Messiah who intends to double down on failure and keep taxing, keep spending, keep expanding the federal government until he's destroyed the US economy and spent the US into bankruptcy..Clinton saw the light.

The proof is in the results so all your bloviating is like pis$ing into the wind acoustic. Just try to stay away from situations which require analysis. You lack the requisite gene.

Not all the Contract With America was implemented but most of the tax policy, reductions in regulations, reductions in government were and history records what happened.

What happened drives a stake straight through the heart of your nonsense argument.

Cutting taxes for individuals and businesses broadens the tax base, creates wealth in the private sector and creates more tax revenues for the federal government and it happens every time it's been done...under Democrat Presidents and Republicans.

posted October 10, 2012 12:49 PM            

quote:

---

A rapid and out of control expansion of the federal government and federal programs ensued which enraged voters.

---

False. Deficits continued to come down. Nothing that Clinton did economically enraged voters. Why voters voted in Republicans was more a matter of reacting to the proposition of HillaryCare as well as Clinton scandal. Obviously, neither of these factors were enough to prevent them from giving Bill four more years, though.

quote:

---

Clinton had just won election, an election he would not have had a chance of winning if many Republicans had not jumped ship and voted for Ross Perot after George H W Bush broke his promise and cut a deal with democrats to raise taxes. George H W Bush said..."Read my lips, no new taxes" and then promptly cut a deal to raise new taxes.

---

FINALLY...you say something I can agree with.

quote:

---

Ross Perot got 19% of the vote in the 1992 election..most of it Republicans who were not merely disenchanted with Bush but thoroughly pis$ed at Bush for breaking his word. Without those Republicans voting for Perot, Clinton had no chance of being elected in 1992.

---

I'm ok with this bit of information as well. You must've hit the books after having your ass handed to you for days on end with regard to Clinton's history. We're not really debating how Clinton got into office, though, are we?

quote:

---

Against that backdrop, here comes Clinton, elected without a majority btw, promising as candidate Clinton to not raise taxes to fund his big government programs and promptly hands Americans the biggest tax increase in history and promptly expands the federal government and federal government programs.

---

Nope. Not the biggest tax increase in history. That's unsubstantiated.

As far as growing government, you've clearly not done your homework.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/05/24/who-is-the-smallest-government-spender-since-eisenhower-would-you-believe-its-barack-obama/

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/03/per-capita-government-spending-by-president.html

quote:

---

The reaction of American voters was predictable. How utterly stupid since Clinton had just witnessed what happened to George H W Bush for breaking his word..."read my lips..no new taxes".

---

Nope. It wasn't new taxes that brought Republicans into office. It was a great many things including attempted healthcare reform, and low voter turnout, but it wasn't taxes or the economy.

quote:

---

Notice what was "JOB ONE" in the Contract With America acoustic...Job # 1.

"1. THE FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT: A balanced budget/tax limitation amendment and a legislative line-item veto to restore fiscal responsibility to an out- of-control Congress, requiring them to live under the same budget constraints as families and businesses.

---

Yes, and Clinton was all for that. He would have loved the line item veto, but unfortunately the Supreme Court doesn't like it. Clinton was already bringing the budgets into being balanced, though, so it's false to make the assumption that Republicans were going to reign in what wasn't an out-of-control spender.

quote:

---

Now acoustic, you can wheeze, whine, screech and bloviate about how wonderful the early years of the Clinton administration were but American voters didn't agree with your analysis.

---

Once again, voters voted Clinton back into office after four years. He had a record to run on, and it was a strong one not beholden to Republicans.

Over the past three years the Republican-controlled Congress has approved discretionary spending that exceeded Bill Clinton's requests by more than $30 billion. The party that in 1994 would abolish the Department of Education now brags in response to Clinton's 2000 State of the Union Address that it is outspending the White House when it comes to education. My colleagues Stephen Moore and Stephen Slivinski found that the combined budgets of the 95 major programs that the Contract with America promised to eliminate have increased by 13%. http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/mind-gop-pussycats

The point is: How did that Contract ON America work out for Conservatives? It didn't. It wasn't lived up to. Republican-controlled Senate voted against some of those proposals. Others had to be negotiated with Clinton.

Only three of the least controversial measures had become law by the end of 1995 as Congress and the White House battled bitterly over the federal budget. http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Contract+with+America

Then, a showdown with the President was lost by Republicans.

Then, two years later Clinton gets re-elected despite the seemingly well orchestrated efforts of Republicans two years prior.

quote:

---

Laying all the bloviating bullshiiit aside acoustic, the rest is history and easily documented as to what happened.

---

This has been true from the start. The only one "bloviating" here has been you. No one else disputes what I've said here. It's all very easy to look up, and find out for yourself.

quote:

---

Taxes and budgets came under control of the US House..Newt.

---

Refer back to my post earlier. Republicans sought to spend greater than Clinton sought.

quote:

---

Clinton was forced to deal with Newt and House Republicans.

---

And conversely, House Republicans were forced to deal with Clinton. They famously stood off, and Clinton won.

quote:

---

The economy boomed, jobs were created in the private sector

---

That was already happening before they came into office, and merely continued to happen.

quote:

---

government was trimmed, regulations were trimmed, tax revenues to government increased as the tax base was broadened and incomes rose; the federal budget WAS balanced and a budget surplus was created and Bill Clinton was reelected in 1996.

---

That's a lot of stuff to force together.

Taxes under Clinton:
Well, first, they weren't out of line. He did raise taxes, but not drastically. Also, the economy grew during Clinton's first couple years, so, yes, the tax base was broader, and, yes, there was more revenue. This occurred prior to Republicans coming to office, so we can say Clinton was a responsible party to this.

Regulation under Clinton:

In early September 1993, Vice President Al Gore's National Partnership for Reinventing Government also urged that the Regulatory Flexibility Act be strengthened by permitting judicial review of agency compliance.

A few weeks later, President Bill Clinton issued Executive Order 12866, "Regulatory Planning and Review",[12] designed, among other things, to ease the regulatory burden on small firms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_Flexibility_Act#The_1995_White_House_Conference_and_SBREFA

Budget balancing:
I've already posted the graphic that shows that Clinton was already bringing the budget into balance prior to Republicans coming into office.

Here's a really nicely balanced article on the Clinton years that neither underestimates the power of Clinton, nor the Republican Congress: http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2010/12/14/the_clinton_economy_good_luck_good_policy_or_both_98794.html

quote:

---

First to Newt Gingrich for being tough enough to insist Clinton change his big government model and adopt the Republican model of tax cuts, smaller, sane government and reduced business regulation.

Second to Dick Morris who took Clinton aside and told him to move to the middle..towards Republicans..and then to take credit for the success when it happened...and it did happen.

And third, to himself for being smart enough to see the good sense in the good advice he was getting because he knew he was toast if he didn't.

---

This is all unsupported opinion.

quote:

---

What happened drives a stake straight through the heart of your nonsense argument.

---

No, it obviously doesn't. You've only sunken deeper into the hole you started digging a few days ago. That you remember things differently than they are is evidence that your history of avoiding political reality has been a long term affliction.

quote:

---

Cutting taxes for individuals and businesses broadens the tax base, creates wealth in the private sector and creates more tax revenues for the federal government and it happens every time it's been done...under Democrat Presidents and Republicans.

---

posted October 10, 2012 02:22 PM            

in short people who wanted the WHOLE COUNTRY to prosper were willing to pay their fair share, and not just those who had millions to spare but everyone.

everyone who voted for clinton, anyway.

posted October 10, 2012 03:01 PM            

You simply don't know what you're talking about...your default position. Your sources are similarly incompetent to deliver any analysis of events past or present.

Anyone who pays a bit of attention to anything you say is going to be as misinformed as you are.

Clinton was is big, big, big trouble in the first 2 years of his administration and I don't give a rat's ass what your sources say in their attempts to re-write history. I was there and voters were pis$ed...at the taxes, regulation, big government model Clinton imposed, HillaryCare and they couldn't get BillyBoy but they could and did get democrats who helped Clinton push through his big government model.

All your bloviating is just leftist bullshiiit gleamed from brain dead sources who couldn't find their own as$es with both hands...a leftist malady.

The proof is in what happened and it unfolded exactly like I said it did. The rest of what you said is horseshiiit.

Clinton was forced to "End welfare as we know it" to howls of protests from leftists to..."Mend it, don't end it"...which was in the Contract with America.

Who can forget Clinton saying.."The era of big government is over"...in the Contract with America too.

Provision after provision in the Contract with America was adopted by Congress and signed into law by Clinton...because he had no choice with an override of his veto staring him straight in the face...and he wanted to get reelected.

Knock off the nonsense acoustic. You don't know what you're talking about.

By the time Clinton left office, unemployment had fallen from 6.8% to 4% and millions of new jobs had been created in the private sector which broadened the tax base and resulted in increased tax revenues...because of reductions in tax rates for individuals and businesses and cuts in business regulations.

Pull your head out of your butt acoustic.

Clinton rejected Obamanomics as president
By: Allan H. Ryskind
9/5/2012

When Bill Clinton puts Barack Obama’s name in nomination at the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, he will be bathed in affection and viewed as a miracle worker. Arguably, despite his impeachment he is the most successful politician of his party since Franklin Roosevelt.

He’s the only Democrat since FDR to win two full presidential terms, presiding over the longest peacetime economic expansion in U.S. history. Unemployment, 7.5 percent when Clinton took office, was down to 4 percent when he left. The Dow Jones industrial average, which roughly charts the growth of pensions and retirement accounts, more than tripled on his watch. Even more stunning, the U.S. government was beginning to sustain the most serious budget surpluses in nearly a century.

Embraced Reaganomics

But there is much irony in all of this: The great Clinton economy began when he embraced the essence of Reaganomics: tax cuts, spending restraint, welfare reform, free trade and the end of his own budget-crushing entitlement program, universal health care.

Clinton, it is mostly forgotten, was on the verge of becoming a failed president in his first two years. Even the Democratic-controlled Congress had defeated his much touted stimulus package and an enormous hike in energy taxes. HillaryCare, the forerunner to Obamacare, was dead in the water by the summer of 1994, with the Senate Democrats hoisting the white flag on this signature issue on the eve of the Congressional elections.

Clinton’s most significant achievement was a huge but unpopular tax rate increase that Obama seems determined to duplicate. So unappealing was his record, the Republicans swept both houses of Congress in November for the first time in four decades.

Newt Gingrich, the political warrior who led the GOP comeback, was enthroned as House Speaker, poised to push through his Reaganite Contract with America. Clinton’s first term was in shambles and it was only half over.

A panicky president, consulting Dick Morris, then decided to steal from the Reagan
playbook, though neither Clinton nor Morris has ever given the iconic GOP president the credit he deserves. Slowly but surely Clinton began tacking to the right, (though he had embraced one Republican idea earlier, the NAFTA free trade pact). Beginning in 1995 he deep-sixed HillaryCare for good, then hinted he would work with Republicans on a decent balanced budget proposal. In an October 17 fundraiser in Houston, he signaled tax cuts were very much in play: “I think,” he conceded, “I raised them [taxes] too much.”

“Era of big government over”

His most obsequious genuflection to the GOP came in his 1996 State of the Union address when he grandly pronounced–to roars of approval from the Republican lawmakers present–”The era of big government is over.”

Rhetorically, Clinton had surrendered to conservative ideology, but substance was to follow. In that same election year, he signed, with liberals howling in protest, a historic GOP welfare reform program, largely designed by Reagan’s own welfare expert, Robert Carleson. The initial results—which Clinton trumpeted at the Democratic Convention in 2000—were spectacular, with caseloads on the verge of falling like stones.

More Clinton concessions were to come. In August of 1997, the president signed a bipartisan balanced budget measure, packed with several critical Republican tax relief items, including a solid, pro-family middle-class tax cut that was in Gingrich’s Contract and had been relentlessly pushed by Christian activist Gary Bauer.

He even slashed Reagan’s tax burden on capital gains by nearly one-third (from 28 percent to 20 percent), embraced a serious decrease in estate taxes, backed several pro-business measures and created the Roth IRA retirement savings account, named after conservative Republican Sen. William Roth. The booming economy was also pushed along by two other little-noted factors: Alan Greenspan’s accommodating Federal Reserve policy and, in the words of former Congressional Budget Office Director June O’Neill, “the absence of legislation that meddled with the economy or that had major, long-run spending consequences on the budget.”

There was yet another beneficent outcome of these GOP-inspired programs: historic budget surpluses. The general prosperity brought in huge sums of revenues to the federal government. Income tax revenue soared.

The cap gains tax reduction generated billions of dollars more. The Social Security Trust Fund was beginning to overflow, due in large part to enactment of proposals by the Reagan created Greenspan Commission. The end of the Cold War, again, courtesy of Ronald Reagan, also permitted hefty cuts in military spending.

According to a jointly authored piece by Clinton’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and his defense secretary (The Washington Post, Aug 10, 2000): “This ‘peace dividend,’ amounting to about $100 billion a year, has been a major contributor to the balanced budget that our economy now enjoys.”

Bill Clinton, not Barack Obama, will be the man of the hour at Charlotte, but the Democratic delegates there will not have the slightest clue as to why they are drenching him in applause. Nor, you can be certain, will the American media enlighten a single, solitary soul as to the reasons for Clinton’s presidential success.
[URL=http://www.humanevents.com/2012/09/05/clinton-rejects-obamanomics-embraces-reaganomic/]http://www.humanevents.com/2012/09/05/clinton-rejects-obamanomics-embraces-reaganomic/[/ URL]

Neither do you know why Clinton was suddenly successful acoustic because you're intellectually incapable of understanding simple economics. Let's call it Econ 101 and leftists fluke out every time. Leftists like your little Marxist Messiah O'Bomber is a failure and will hopefully be involuntarily retired because he failed to understand simple economic principles...Econ 101.

posted October 10, 2012 05:18 PM            

quote:

---

Your sources are similarly incompetent to deliver any analysis of events past or present.

---

Nope. My sources are the same as anyone else's. Do you have a single source to disprove any of mine?

quote:

---

Anyone who pays a bit of attention to anything you say is going to be as misinformed as you are.

---

Once again, I'm a better judge of reality than you are. People reading what I've said will remember what happened, and know that I've accounted for it correctly.

quote:

---

Clinton was is big, big, big trouble in the first 2 years of his administration

---

Yes, but not for the reasons you've previously mentioned, specifically the economy, taxes, bad budgets, and large government.

quote:

---

I don't give a rat's ass what your sources say in their attempts to re-write history.

---

People don't generally have a motive to re-write history. They would only engage in it in the manner you have: to alter perception about what actually occurred. You've rewritten history here. I haven't. My sources haven't.

quote:

---

I was there and voters were pis$ed...at the taxes, regulation, big government model Clinton imposed, HillaryCare

---

You're right on a net total ONE count. Yes, they were upset at HillaryCare, and the ramifications of that. The rest is stuff that the Right generally projects on the Left, but wasn't actually occurring in reality. If you think taxes should have been included amongst the things you got right, I will point you to the fact that Clinton didn't lower taxes until well into his second term.

If you had mentioned Clinton scandals, I'd have accepted that. If you had said that Republicans were organized, I would have accepted that. If you were to say that Democratic apathy was high, I'd have accepted that. Not taxes, not "big government," not the economy, not the budgets.

quote:

---

The proof is in what happened and it unfolded exactly like I said it did. The rest of what you said is horseshiiit.

---

No, I've correctly accounted for things.

quote:

---

Clinton was forced to "End welfare as we know it" to howls of protests from leftists to..."Mend it, don't end it"...which was in the Contract with America.

---

Yes, welfare reform was one of the few things Clinton passed that Republicans initiated.

quote:

---

Who can forget Clinton saying.."The era of big government is over"...in the Contract with America too.

---

He said that in 1996, well after people had forgotten about Newt's victory. In the same speech he said:

As we move forward with tomorrow's challenges, we also must take care of yesterday's unfinished business. First, we must balance the budget. In the 12 years before I took office the deficit skyrocketed and our national debt quadrupled.

I came to Washington determined to act, and we did. In the first three years of our administration -- thanks to the Deficit Reduction Act of 1993 -- we cut the deficit nearly in half. In fact, our budget would be in balance today were it not for the interest payments we have to make on the debt that accumulated in the 12 years before I took office. http://www.cnn.com/US/9601/budget/01-27/clinton_radio/

See? History corroborates what I've said.

quote:

---

Provision after provision in the Contract with America was adopted by Congress and signed into law by Clinton...because he had no choice with an override of his veto staring him straight in the face...and he wanted to get reelected.

---

False. Not provision after provision. Three things on that list got through. Some were thwarted by a Republican Senate.

quote:

---

Knock off the nonsense acoustic. You don't know what you're talking about.

---

It's clear that I do. I'm not the one trying to make things out as different than they were.

quote:

---

By the time Clinton left office, unemployment had fallen from 6.8% to 4% and millions of new jobs had been created in the private sector which broadened the tax base and resulted in increased tax revenues...because of reductions in tax rates for individuals and businesses and cuts in business regulations.

---

Cuts in regulation Gore and Clinton initiated on their own prior to the Republican Congress. Taxes were lowered well into the second term. The economy had been growing since before Clinton took office. I've already reported all of this.

quote:

---

Pull your head out of your butt acoustic.

---

...said the guy still trying to correct history.

You post an article from 2012 that ALSO remembers the facts wrong as justification for your views?

The "great Clinton economy" began before he took office, not when Republicans came to town. Spending restraint happened before Republicans came to town.

quote:

---

Even the Democratic-controlled Congress had defeated his much touted stimulus package and an enormous hike in energy taxes.

---

Stimulus package. Where were you on this? Why didn't you bring this up as evidence of his supposedly big spending ways? You forgot. It is true, though. Clinton did lose a stimulus war, and it turned out to be unnecessary anyway as the economy was doing fine. He did, after all, pass a bill of primarily tax cuts in 1993 as well (yes, the one with the tax hike on rich people).

quote:

---

Clinton’s most significant achievement was a huge but unpopular tax rate increase that Obama seems determined to duplicate. So unappealing was his record, the Republicans swept both houses of Congress in November for the first time in four decades.

---

To say it was the tax increase, and not the scandals -the travel staff firing, the Whitewater scandal- is to miss the reason Democrats didn't show up to that election. To put it another way, how many Democrats do you suppose minded the tax increase on the rich only? Probably none. Obviously there were OTHER reasons for not showing up at the polls. They didn't magically show up for Clinton because of what Republicans did when they re-elected him.

posted October 11, 2012 08:28 AM            

When the proof...history in the form of results and events stare you straight in the face you still deny.

You and leftists like you are the reason Ann Coulter wrote the book.."How to Talk to a Liberal...If you Really Must". Of course acoustic, you're no Liberal, you're a far left radical with your head up the butt of O'Bomber and other Marxists.

Clinton would have been thrown out of office if he had been on the ballot in 1994. The mood in America was ugly over his tax increases, expansion of government, HillaryCare, expansion of welfare, scandals like hiring staff who couldn't pass an FBI background check.

So you can deny and parrot the lines of morons desperate to cover Clinton's ass...like it was all roses during his administration but it wasn't. I was active in politics and I sure as hell know better.

You on the other hand don't know much of anything and are forced to believe what morons tell you and there's no bigger morons than those who think sucking capital out of the private sector to fund government expansion...(raising taxes), creates jobs, raises tax revenues to governments and creates an expanding economy.

That's the insanity of leftist economic policy. That's O'Bomber's economic policy. That was Clinton's economic policy in the first 2 years but unlike Clinton, your little Marxist Messiah doesn't have the intelligence to drop the insanity, cut business taxes, permit businesses to expense capitol improvements, broaden the tax base, cut government spending, cut government regulation, get the hell out of the way of energy exploration and production and stop making war on the American economy.

Now Mr Know Nothing, I can articulate clearly why cutting taxes on individuals and businesses results in expanding economies, rising incomes, wealth creation in the private sector, broadening of the tax base and increased revenues to the federal government.

On the other hand Mr Know Nothing, you cannot articulate the reason why raising taxes on individuals and businesses results in expanding economies, rising incomes, wealth creation in the private sector broadening of the tax base and increased revenues to the federal government...because it sure as hell doesn't have that effect.

posted October 12, 2012 11:03 AM            

It's just absolute nonsense that voters all over America suddenly threw democrats out of the House and Senate and turned control of Congress over to Republicans for the first time in 40 years....because they were soooo happy with the huge tax increases, soooo happy with the huge expansion of the federal government, sooo happy with huge expansion of federal welfare, sooo happy with the meddling by the federal government into their private lives.

The sorry fact is acoustic, you fail to pass the first test of any analysis.

You can't connect the dots between "cause and effect" and that's fatal to any analysis, oh, and fatal to analysts too.

At least Clinton..whom I didn't like..had the good sense to abandon his big government agenda and adopt the sane Republican tax cuts, reduced government spending and reductions in business regulation which produced a balanced budget, a booming economy and his reelection in 1996.

Your little Marxist Messiah is doubling down on failure. He's an intellectual zero, unlike Clinton who was a pragmatic politician who operated in his self interest.

What? You thought Clinton did all that for the nation? Not hardly! Clinton wanted 4 more years in the White House and his advisor, Dick Morris told Clinton that unless he abandoned his far left big government agenda and moved to the middle...he was history in 1996.

posted October 12, 2012 12:20 PM            

Can you speak against Clinton setting upon a fiscally conservative path in his first two years? No.

You could say that the HillaryCare proposition seemed to indicate Clinton was for an expansion of government, but there was no big increase in government during those first two years, and there was no reckless spending. Taxes were increased only on the rich.

Can you make the case for Clinton increasing regulation during the first two years? No.

Can you illustrate the contraction of the economy under the first two years of Clinton? No, because there wasn't.

All that we can say about Clinton's first two years is that Clinton put people off, and made himself unpopular. It wasn't through enacted policy. It wasn't because of the economy.