Robert Reich: Why Bill Clinton's...view of tax cuts should be disregarded

[hlthe2b]

Why Bill Clinton's Favorable View of Obama's Tax Deal Should Be Disregarded
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/why-bill-clintons-favorab_b_795405.html

Bill Clinton seems the perfect validator for Barack Obama -- which is why the president is utilizing the former president for selling his tax deal. After all, the economy boomed when Clinton was president and 22 million net new jobs were created. From a more narrow political perspective -- and this is important to Democrats in Washington -- Bill Clinton was reelected, even though he lost both houses of Congress in the 1994 midterms.

But the analogy falls apart as soon as you realize Clinton's economy was vastly different from Obama's. The recession Clinton inherited was relatively small, and caused by the Fed raising interest rates too high to ward off inflation. So it could be reversed by the Fed lowering interest rates -- as the Fed did in 1994. By 1995, the so-called "jobless recovery" had morphed into a full-blown jobs recovery. By 1996, at pollster Dick Morris's urging, Clinton could proclaim to the American people "you've never had it so good, and you ain't seen nothing yet."

.... Whole post is at link above...


Seems there is a lot of dissension on this and not just from the expected dissenters. :shrug:

[hlthe2b]

1. To those who unrec this post, why not counter it with discussion?

I find it unfathomable that those that disagree would prefer to ignore Robert Reich's comments, unrec the post so that it disappears, (and that of Howard Dean) this morning, rather than offer counter discussion. :shrug:

[spooky3]

3. here's a rec to offset one of them - thanks for posting; I had wondered about this

because Reich's views (expressed earlier) were so different from Clinton's.

[laughingliberal]

2. K & R nt