Through the Past Darkly

Let's go over how we got here. Much of this information comes from "It's Still the Economy, Stupid : George W. Bush, The GOP's CEO", by Paul Begala.

President Reagan had a fairly strong economy, the growth of which was to a great extent based on his prodigious defense spending. President Reagan's policies, however, also increased the deficit by an enormous amount, and in President George H. W. Bush's presidency the bill came due.

Then we had the Clinton Years. It's hard not to notice that the economy seemed very strong in the Clinton Years. Why?

Well there are a few explanations. One is that President Reagan's policies and tax cuts ended up causing the expansion in the nineties. This isn't very logical as the key element of President Reagan's economic strategy, tax cuts, had since seen several tax increases. One under President Reagan, one under President Bush and another under President Clinton. If Tax Raises were the economic poison they are supposed to be, how did we get the go-go nineties?

Another clue suggesting that Clintonomics was a rejection to Reagonomics was how Republicans reacted to his proposals. Remember that line above about tax increases being poison? Well check out this commentary by Rep. John Kasich (R-OH).

"It's like a snakebite. The venom is going to be injected into the body of this economy; in our judgment it's going to spread throughout the body and it's going to begin to kill the jobs that American's have."

Of course the history of the 1990's does not exactly support this analysis. Another possible explanation is to explain it all in relation to the Tech Bubble and the admittedly brilliant work of Alan Greenspan during the 1990s. Alan Greenspan, however, felt inclined to share a little of his credit.

"My colleagues and I have been very appreciative of your [president Clinton's] support of the Fed over the years, and your commitment to fiscal discipline, which . . . has been instrumental in achieving what in a few weeks . . . will be the longest economic expansion in the nation's history."

The Tech Bubble certainly was problematic; although two salient facts should be noted. Number one the technology sector wasn't the entire economy. Number two, President Clinton reduction of the deficit helped create the credit necessary to fund the growth in the technology sector (and in other sectors as well).

President Bush's economic policies haven't exactly produced the kind of rampaging economy you'd expect. Part of that is September 11th, of course, which he can hardly be blamed for. But of course President Bush also gets credit for emptying out the surplus and taking us back to deficits in record time.

And along with tax cuts for the wealthy, President Bush has chipped away at all sorts of programs designed to help the working poor and the middle class. In effect, the poor face a tax increase due to cutbacks in services and benefits that the government provides. Their jobs are less safe, they have less access to healthcare, schools for their kids aren't as good, the food they eat is less screened, and the air they breath is less healthy.