Posted on 01/16/2011 5:40:30 PM PST by madmominct
Hello All - I need some help demolishing the arguments I've had twice in the past few weeks from libs who make the claim that the economy in the 90s during the Clinton years was glorious and during the Bush years it sucked. One said that her exprience was that when a liberal was in power she worked, had money, everything was just dandy. When Republicans were in power, the opposite. Now I know that when the Clintons were president we had the dot.com bubble, but can anyone give me some other cogent arguments to wake up these delusional libs? Thanks in advance for your help!
For starters it began booming when house republicans put Clinton in a fiscal headlock balancing the budget and killing his job killing health care bill.
Republicans took the house in a landslide in 1994
The economy finally began to reap the productivity gains of computers in the workplace, the internet, and integration of technology into all aspects of the workplace.
The economy of the 90s boomed not because of Clinton, but despite him and his tax increases.
This may not directly apply but here is one thing I like to point out. Even though there were supposed budget surpluses during the Clinton years, the national debt increased each year. That means that instead of paying off debt with the extra money, they just spent it all and and then some and the country went further into debt.
Seems to me that there was a massive expansion of temp services during the Clinton administration. Its easy to maske good job numbers when people lose one good job only to take two crappy ones.
In fact, as CNN’s Brooke Jackson has reported: “Three days before Christmas 1992, the National Bureau of Economic Research finally issued its official proclamation that the recession had ended 21 months earlier. What became the longest boom in U.S. history actually began nearly two years before Clinton took office.” (See http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/10/31/jackson.recession.primer.otsc/).
That last sentence is particularly telling, since public perception is that Clinton inherited a bad economy and saved it by raising taxes during his first term – something that I don’t believe is ever possible.
By the same token, Clinton is generally perceived as having a stellar economic record during his own presidency, in spite of the fact that the economy was already starting to decline during the last year of his term after the stock market crashed in March 2000.
According to a report by MSNBC: “The longest economic expansion in U.S. history faltered so much in the summer of 2000 that business output actually contracted for one quarter, the government said Wednesday in releasing a comprehensive revision of the gross domestic product. Based on new data, the Commerce Department said that the GDP — the country’s total output of goods and services — shrank by 0.5 percent at an annual rate in the July-September quarter of 2000.”
When GW Bush correctly warned the American voters about the nation’s declining economic performance during the 2000 presidential campaign, the same Democrats who had loudly criticized his father for “the worst economy in fifty years” had no problem at all accusing him of “talking down the economy.”
The President has very little real ability to help the economy. Most of that is in Congress’ lap.
$10 A BARREL OIL THANKS TO BUSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh giving Clinton credit for that drives me nuts.
Also Boomer generation was at it’s peak productivity and the post cold war dividend.
Clinton had nothing to do with any of it- he wasted it in fact, threw it all away.
All financial bills start in the Congress and the Republican Congress refused Clinton’s budget and forced him to cut spending. In short, all the right decisions in that period were foisted on an unwilling Clinton by the House. Having said that, the boom itself should not be credited to politicians whether Republican or Democrat. Ask your friend if she thinks that the credit should go to entrepreneurs or Newt Gingrich.
Thanks to all of you...I will try to put your suggestions into one coherent devastating argument!
Clinton decimated the armed services. Deep cuts were made in all areas of defense which resulted in moving closer to a balanced budget. After 9/11 there was lots of talk about laying the blame at the feet of Clinton. Would 9/11 have happened if our military had been stronger? I don’t know, but I do know when GWB came he had two wars to contend with and now he is being blamed for our current money problems?!?!? Weird the way they think!!!
Ping for later
but even at that...the 90's were good for the big shots, the flippers, the people who get bonuses,etc...
I didn't get any meaningful raises and I sure don't get bonuses....
plus there was a big jump in local, county and state taxes and fees....
maybe Gates did well...maybe people that had lots of income for the stock market...but I think wage earners were left behind long ago..
Yes, Bill Clinton slashed the military budget, as all treasonous leftwing democrats do, then gave away and/or sold sophisticated weapons technology to the ChiComs helping them become the military giant and threat they are today.
Great point - I forgot about how much Clinton cut the military. That’s why we had to struggle to catch up after 911 and why some of our forces had such horrible equipment that private citizens had to take up collections to send them supplies - like fans!
Lots of people made money in the stock market due to the dot.com bubble which was based on vastly overrated companies and those that cooked their books.
Agreed. The Boom years of the 90’s were the result of telephone deregulation during the Reagan years. Without the telephone deregulation we wouldn’t have had:
- cell phones
- optical fiber for faster telecom
- computer networking (we would have had mainframes & dumb terminals)
- public use of the internet
The four items listed above gave us the rise of Cisco and Intel and Verizon and T-Mobile and Blackberries and SAP and Motorolla and RedHat and Novell and Apple’s tremondous growth and Microsoft’s tremendous growth and almost every other Software/Cellphone/Networking/Telecom related company.
Slick Willy just rode the wave and claimed the credit and squandered the ‘peace dividend’.
The Boom years of the 90’s were the result of telephone deregulation during the Reagan years. Without the telephone deregulation we wouldn’t have had:
- cell phones
- optical fiber for faster telecom
- computer networking (we would have had mainframes & dumb terminals)
- public use of the internet
The four items listed above gave us the rise of Cisco / Intel / Verizon / T-Mobile / Blackberries / SAP / Motorolla / RedHat / Novell / Apple’s tremondous growth / Microsoft’s tremendous growth and gave us almost every other Software/Cellphone/Networking/Telecom related company that works with PCs/Networks/the Web.
Slick Willy just rode the wave, claimed the credit and squandered the ‘peace dividend’.
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