Clinton never blamed Bush Sr. for the crappy economy he inherited.

[Robin Hood]

He and the Dem's got in there and fought for restructuring the trickle down mess to the tax structure that gave us the boom. He and his Administration never blamed the economy that he inherited on Bush Sr. In three years time he turned the economy around. he also had terrorist attacks on the world trade center and elsewhere in the world, including oklahoma city and the Olympic bomber.

He never blamed his the economy on these factors. Yet, these days every time I hear these pundits defend bush's economy, all they say is that he inherited this economy.

NO HE DID NOT INHERIT THIS ECONOMY!! He inherited a surplus and a strong economy that he pissed away by implementing the crooked trickle down economics again. He and the Repubs in congress and the senate are responsible for this economy, and no one else.

So anytime that these liars try to shovel these lies around again, remember this post and shove the cold hard truth into their smug lying faces. This is Bush's economy and no one else's, and 9/11 has nothing to do with it, as Clinton had his own terror strikes.

It's the economy stupid, and this economy sucks "big time".

[caffeine76]

1. gee i wonder why?

Hey dip ass look a chart of the S&P 500, it started climbing in late 91 - years before the election. Bush lost because he raised taxes when he said he wouldn't. Clinton knew he couldnt blame Bush for the economy - because there was nothing wrong with it. Why do you think Clinton raised taxes in 93? Because the economy had come back by the time he came into office. Meanwhile do a google search for the Microsort antitrust case - when it began, and look at a chart of the nasdaq - you'll find that that was the top for the nas, UNDER CLINTON. Also, we didn't have a speculative bubble we were recovering from. And thank god for the fiscal stimulus - the bear market could've been worse. Ah yes - dont cha hate history!

[Homer12]

2. You lack spine caffeine-69!!!

Like flies to S**t, even the mention of Clinton draws you near.

[LoZoccolo]

3. I'm thinkin' it might be...

...the poor poll numbers that Bush is getting lately. We seem to be getting a lot of people with low post counts.

[Robin Hood]

4. Don't cha hate revisionist history.

Yeah, right! Bush Sr. is responsible for the Clinton economy. What a load of shit.

I clearly remember when Gore passed the tie breaking vote in the Senate that passed the Clinton economic plan which made the tax structure more fair. Bob Dole and Trent Lott came out and gave a press conference after that, where they were crying that the sky was gonna fall because of the Clinton economic plan. And I also remember them saying that the Republicans are not responsible for the economic damge that Clintons plan would cause.

And here you are telling me that Bush Sr. was responsible for the good economy, when his own party didn't want anything to do with Clinton's economic plan, which raised taxes on the filthy rich who were'nt paying their fair share in the first place, and hadn't been paying their share for twelve years.

How can you lie like that? Fast forward to today and three years of trickle down economics, and three million+ jobs lost, and from a surplus to a huge debt. That's what bush has done by implementing the stupid trickle down economy. It's his economy and no on elses.

hey, If it works so damn great, then where's the proof einstein?

[Nederland]

39. Proof

Unfortunately he's right. By the time Clinton took office, the Bush recession of 1991 was long over.

GDP was up 3.0% in 1992,

http://www.economagic.com/em-cgi/data.exe/var/rgdp-annchg

An unemployment started to decline in July of 1992,

http://www.economagic.com/em-cgi/data.exe/feddal/ru

and the stock market had recovered too

http://www.economagic.com/em-cgi/data.exe/fedstl/trsp500

[Metatron]

5. Bush 1

As I recall, the GOP was not too interested in winning the '92 presidential election because they predicted that a recession would occur. They figured that a Democrat president would never get reelected in 1996 due to the dismal economic forecast.

Of course, the shitty economy at that time was a direct result of the voodoo economics and deficit spending of Reagan.

[JNelson6563]

16. almost right

As you may know, the GOP has a tendancy to eat their own (i.e Lott). Indeed the GOP left Bush out to dry, they didn't want him re-elected and I don't think it was because of recession.

He raised taxes, GOPers love nothing more than their money and he committed the cardinal sin. Also he was proving to have some sort of moderate views on an issue or two, unacceptable to those mooks.

Besides, with the Commies out of the picture they needed a new target for the two-minute hates they so well love, hence Clinton.

They've tried replacements, bin Laden, Saddam, no one is as good a taget for the two-minute hate liike Clinton though which is obvious by how often they point to him STILL whenever there is a problem.

My fav: 9/11 is Clinotn's fault. LOL!!! Of course when the WTC was bombeb about 1 month into Bill's first term I don't recall hearing any whining that Bush senior had done a crappy job on securtiy.

the GOP; the great projecters.

Julie

[newyawker99]

18. Hi koleszar!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Metatron]

34. Thanks for the welcome n/t

[Pepperbelly]

17. LOL

Clinton haters are funny.

[papau]

21. GNP numbers show negative qts in 92 and 1st qtr 93 - the start of Clinton

Unlike with W, the handoff qtr (20 days under prior Pres.) was negative for Clinton - and he turned it around.

Bush was handed a still growing economy - and I guess caffeine76 would be correct to say Bush turned it around - only he should recall that the Bush turn around was to make it into a recession.

I do like the stock market comment - since the market is only correct about 50% of the time as to what is coming - and the market means nothing as to economic growth occuring or not occuring. A little reading might lead to the dicovery of the "long term growth being reflected in the long term market rise" - and noting the words "long term".

Short term market changes over only a couple of years means Nada - unless you are a lying, spinning Fox TV /GOP writer.

[Yupster]

25. Here are the GDP numbers

1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995
Japan 6.2 4.8 5.1 4.0 1.1 0.1 0.5 0.9
U.S.A. 3.8 3.4 1.3 -1.0 2.7 2.2 3.5 2.0
Canada 5.0 2.4 -0.2 -1.8 0.8 2.2 4.6 2.2
Germany 3.7 3.6 5.7 5.0 2.2 -1.2 2.9 1.9
France 4.4 4.3 2.5 0.8 1.3 -1.5 2.9 2.4
Italy 4.1 2.9 2.1 1.2 0.7 -1.2 2.2 3.2
U.K. 5.0 2.2 0.4 -2.0 -0.5 2.3 3.8 2.4
Changes from previous period in percentage
(Source: IMF)


USA

1988 + 3.8 % Reagan
1989 + 3.4 % Bush
1990 + 1.3 % Bush
1991 - 1.0 % Bush
1992 + 2.7 % Bush
1993 + 2.2 % Clinton
1994 + 3.5 % Clinton
1995 + 2.0 % Clinton

[ProfessorGAC]

28. It's More Intense Than That Papau

The traditional (and foolish) definition of economic recession is inadequate and statistically valid.

The situation Clinton inherited was far more dire in '92 than merely 2Q of negative growth. The increase in the deficit was based upon gov't spending increases in the 80's, not increased Transfer Payments. Therefore, the entire real GDP was funded with debt!

This means that the negative growth, indexed to debt, really meant that we had 5 years(!) of unsustainable economic conditions.

That's the primary reason why i think this traditional definition is foolish. If one looks at these traditional measures, one could consider the first quarter of 43 already entering recession. But, indexed to debt, the rate of growth in 1Q2001 was superior to any quarter in the Reagan era. Not exactly poor economic health.

The original poster of this nonsense is a buffoon and is not to be taken seriously. He/she knows nothing of which he/she speaks.
The Professor

[ProfessorGAC]

27. You're Wrong

The econometric data does not support your thesis. Of course, i wouldn't anticipate your understanding of a sound analysis.

Secondly, the speculative bubble affected the market, but did not have a causal effect on ANY economic health factors. You will be looking a long time to find any. My analysis, which is quite comprehensive and provable, is that the market was essentially disconnected from the macroeconomy. The rises and falls not only didn't time correlate to the economy itself, but those same volatility points had ZERO effect on growth, PPW, CPI, and M2 growth.

Lastly, there is ZERO evidence that tax cuts stimulate economic growth. And, the bear market was the correction from an overstimulated market growth and was, AGAIN, disconnected from the economy as a whole.

You may think you know what you're talking about, but that doesn't make it so. And, since you started the insults; you are an idiot.
The Professor

[Spirochete]

42. Speaking of history...

nice tombstone ya got there...

[Yupster]

6. Here are the charts

No need to rely on memory.

http://pluto.fss.buffalo.edu/classes/eco/sb56/507CL1Graphs.pdf

We all do remember "the worst economy in 50 years" though. I don't know if that's blaming, but it's certainly at least pointing out.

Bush's recession ended in July 1991, well over a year before the election.

[Robin Hood]

7. If you look at that chart

You will notice that the GDP went up in 1992, when Clinton took office.

Bush had a 7+% unemployment rate and a three trillion dollar deficit. Clinton gave Jr. a 3.5% unemployment rate and a surplus. Clinton was able to bring down unemployment and pay off the debt that the repubs incurred.

[Yupster]

8. Yes, GDP went up strongly in 1992

Clinton took office in 1993.

$ 3 trillion defecit? I thought the record defecit was around $ 280 billion, which Bush Jr. will not only beat, but will lap this year.

[screaming_meme]

9. I dont recall Bush blaming Clinton for the current economy

Where did you read that?

[Yupster]

10. They talked the economy down

during the campaign for sure.

[DemBones DemBones]

13. Did they ever! I'll never forget Cheney and Bush talking down

the economy during the fall of 2000. Then, once in office, they started insulting other countries right and left, while ignoring the warnings about terrorism.

[JackS124]

41. If you recall, the economy was a non-issue in the 2000 campaign

because it was so strong. It was only after the fraud was appointed by the SCOTUS that our unelected pResident started talking down the economy as the basis for justifying his first tax cut, because a "stimulus" was needed. The more he trashed how well the economy was doing, the faster things fell, starting with the stock markets and then into employment.

I remember this all too well. By June 2001, the company I work for began a round of layoffs and announcing "right-sizing" that continues until today. The company I work for went from having 46,000 employees at the end of 2000 to a current workforce of 25,000 - a 46% reduction in staffing. Just today, more layoffs were announced as well as "outsourcing" certain activities to India and the Phillipines.

The building where I work had close to 4,000 employees during the Clinton years. We're down to 750 people thanks to these cheap labor 'pubbies.

[DemBones DemBones]

11. Republicans blame everything bad on Clinton but give him no

credit for anything good. Bush doesn't have to say it himself when he has people all over the place saying it for him. People like, oh, Rush Limpbow.

[Robin Hood]

12. They've been saying it for the last year.

They quit saying it for a while but now that the economy still sucks after his tax cuts, that is all that they are saying when confronted with polling numbers and economic numbers.

They say it every day on pundit talk shows. This President inherited this economy and then 9/11, balh, blah, blah... So what has he done about it? Tax cuts for te rich? Still waiting for that trickle down to trickle on me.

[jab105]

14. "The recession that began in the.....

Clinton administration"....

That's what Bush always says, I heard him say it a few weeks ago, and its Bullshit, because the recession began in March 2001...when Bush was in office....

[DoYouEverWonder]

15. How Bush Sr almost got indicted for fraud

This is an interesting read for anyone who doubts that Clinton did not inherit a serious mess from Bu$h Sr.

(This is not a mainstream source, so make of it what you will. Maybe someone can fill me in to who Al Martin really is and if he is credible?)


http://news4florida.tripod.com/indexfraud.html

When Bush left the White House, the last debt numbers published by the Bush Regime was $5.66 trillion, when, in fact, the actual size of the debt was about $14 trillion. In other words, the national debt was about three times the stated numbers.

Clinton got very nervous because one of the things he had done very early in the regime was try to get his people to figure out how much the nation was in debt and what the actual size of the then current budget deficit was. Nobody in the Clinton Administration knew. They knew they were inheriting a federal budget deficit.

The Bush Administration had publicly stated that the federal budget deficit for fiscal 1992 was $360 billion. As it turned out, the fiscal budget deficit for 1992 going into calendar year 1993 was over $700 billion.

Realizing the enormity of the fraud he had inherited, Clinton actually started thinking about indicting George Bush Sr. on charges of fraud and malfeasance.

[Yupster]

24. I think we all here understand

that the government uses the social security surpluses every year as general revenue and puts bonds in the "trust fund" in return.

This makes the defecit look much less than it is, and therefore the debt too. Th8s is fine until the years when that extra money will be needed when the boomers retire, and when the government goes to get it out of the "trust fund" there won't be anything in there to get.

Yes, I think everyone at DU is aware of this going on.

This article dresses it up as some massive fraud-conspiracy going on.

In my opinion it is fraud. The social security surpluses should be kept outside of government, in bank cd's or insurance company annuity fixed accounts, so the money will truly be there when it's needed.

I think both sides like it the way it is though where the congress gets to spend the extra money each year and leave it to congressmen in the future to figure out where to find the money when it's needed.

[Skittles]

19. THAT'S BECAUSE HE WAS TOO BUSY

DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT. And what he did had nothing to do with selling out the country to his rich friends.

[kcordell]

20. Were You Under A Rock In '92?

Clinton's whole campaign was blaiming the "worst economy in 50 years" on President Bush. That's how he won. One of your last statements was taken from Clinton's campaign: "It's the economy stupid." Or was he referring to Carter's Administration?

[papau]

23. And Clinton was correct - Reagan/Bush was a disaster for the economy

12 year job growth but little job growth in last 4 years,

Unemployment at 7% at the start -Feb 81, abd the same 7% at the end -Dec 92.

Reagan 8 years only growth of 3.33% versus Carter GNP growth of 3.25 - but Reagan achieved his only by a huge borrowing from our kids - the debt increase from 1 T to 2.7 Trillion dollars.v And then the no growth Bush years. Funny how massive tax cut with deficits projected to forever caue interest rates to rise above wher the economy would otherwie put them - causing disaster. Now we have 2 great examples - Reagan and Bush43.

Amazing how folks can't understand that the good or bad of a tax change is in the design of the change - and not in whether rates go up or down.

[Skittles]

38. CAMPAIGNING IS ONE THING

Clinton WAS correct - it WAS the economy. BUT WHEN HE WAS ELECTED PRESIDENT HE GOT TO WORK *FIXING* IT, NOT DESTROYING IT AND BLAMING IT ON HIS PREDECESSOR. Get a g.d. CLUE.

[kcordell]

40. Get Your own Clue Little Girl

Two weeks after taking office Clinton came on national TV and told us that Bush's Economy was even worse than he previously thought and that he wasn't going to be able to cut our taxes. In fact, he then notified us that our taxes would be going up. "I've worked harder these last two weeks than I've ever worked on anything...." Bill Clinton, Jan. '93. GET YOUR OWN CLUE! Next time you yell at me I would appreciate it if you had a better knowledge about what you're talking about.

[wyldwolf]

22. Clinton also never blamed Bush for the first WTC bombing...

[recidivist]

26. On what planet do you live?

The core issue of the '92 Clinton campaign was the economy, and the basic Democratic mantra was "the worst economy in 50 years." That, of course, wasn't true, although it WAS politically effective, mainly due to the sheer fecklessness of the Bush campaign, plus Ross Perot.

I suppose one could squint at the numbers in some pretty peculiar ways to rationalize the '92 Clinton claim, but the truth is that the '91 Bush recession was very mild by historical standards, certainly as compared to the '79-82 recessions. In fact, the '91 "recession" economy looked pretty good compared to what we had come to accept as normalcy in the LBJ-Nixon-Ford-Carter "stagflation" era. My personal memory does not extend to the earlier postwar recessions, but several of them were deeper as well.

There are some interesting issues buried in all this. For one thing, the economy is very different than it was even 30 or 40 years ago. The center of balance of employment has shifted from manufacturing to services. The government sector, including transfer payments, is much larger. A majority of working families are dual income. Production has been internationalized, so domestic producers have lost much of their pricing power. On the other hand, computer based information systems have greatly enhanced internal business efficiency and, in particular, improved inventory management, which used to be a major driving force in recessions.

Adding it all up, recent recessions have been shorter and milder than their historical predecessors. On the other hand, as the public has become habituated to routine prosperity, even short and mild recessions can produce a quite exaggeraged sense of loss. The recession from which we are now emerging is a good example. For those of us who remember the late 60's and 70's, the overall 2000-2002 economy still looked pretty good, recession and all.

The emphasis here is on "overall." The tech sector overbuilt in the boom years and is going through a painful rationalization as it reaches maturity. That is the classic boom-bust pattern. The other sector that has taken a spectacular hit is the stock market, where we have had the collapse of a classic bubble. Again, painful for some, but the fundamental fact remains that the Dow was in the 700's when Reagan took office. Long term investors were sitting on truly huge gains from a 17 year bull market. They've given some of it back, but still enjoy significant gains from any long term perspective. That's why there has been very little panic.

I generally don't like Chicken Little politics because it tends to get people oriented to the shortest of short term events, when what we need to be focusing on is a handful of major structural problems. Social Security is going off the cliff financially in about a dozen years, and raising taxes is not a good answer. Medicare and Medicaid are breaking the bank. The dominant "answer" in the Democratic Party today is to rope everyone into a single payer system in order to effectuate comprehensive rationing. We can and should do better. The crisis in urban public education has to be solved if we are to make progress on our intractable cluster of social/racial/urban issues.

I could add some more, but these are the Big Three (keeping to domestic issues) in my book. All are tough issues. I suppose it is easier to run on symbolic issues, identity politics, and minor ticks in the unemployment rate, but that is the politics of evasion.

[ProfessorGAC]

29. Read My Reply To Papau

The situation when Clinton was running and when he enetered was more intensely poor than your analysis would indicate. Your numbers do not indicate the funding sources of the "growth", negative or positive of the prior 5 years. An economy funded by increased debt looks a lot different than an economy puking surplus cash. The differences are astounding.
The Professor

[Yupster]

30. I believe in single pay healthcare

I think it's the only solution at this point.

People can't afford their own individual policies. Employers are struggling to pay portions for their employees. Doctors are spending too much time as debt collectors, and hospitals are charging others for the big chunk of people who have no insurance and won't pay their bills.

I was impressed by Carol M-B. I think she has the best solution. Single pay, and detack it from employment.

On the economic stuff, I don't know why people rely on their memory for things like economic numbers. Did the GNP go up or down the year before Clinton took office? Why argue about it. Just look up the numbers. I mean we're all on the internet. It's not that hard to do a search. Turns out the GDP had a pretty good year Bush's last year and grew at 2.7 %.

[Robin Hood]

35. So the GDP was normal in 92'

Which meant that Employees that did have a job worked their freakin asses off. Meanwhile a minimum of 7% unemployed people were going homeless, i was one of them.

Just because GDP or productivity goes up, it does not mean that the economy is necessarily doing good. GDP and productivity can be tied together. It just means that the employers are making bank at the expense of their employees quality of life and safety.

And then they cry that workers comp insurance is hurting business.

[rman]

31. what else is new

No repub prez is responsible for any of the problems during or after his presidency.
All dem presidents are responsible for all of the problems during and after the presidency.
They'd blame Clinton for WW2 if they figured they could get away with it.

[recidivist]

32. No, they blame Woodrow Wilson for WWII.

And they have a pretty good point. Not that Wilson did it all by his lonesome, but is one of the leading culprits in losing the peace.

[theboss]

33. Um, yes he did

A. It was the whole basis for his campaign. "It's the economy, stupid." "Focus like a laser beam on the econonmy." "Worst economy in 50 years."

B. It was also the rationale for not passing a middle-class tax cut. "The economy is worse than we thought."

[Robin Hood]

37. It may have been the basis for his campaign.

But it's not like it wasn't an issue. 7% unemployment, huge deficits and a president that didn't even know the price of milk. The economy was THE issue.

After Clinton got elected, he did not go on and on about how the economy is not really his responsibility because he inherited the bad economy. he did something about it. And when he and Gore passed the Clinton budget, the repubs said that they were not reasponsible for the sky that would certainly be falling.

[im4edwards]

36. didn't need to, it was clearly coming back around

it just wasn't super obvious in early November. By January it was.