Remember this anyone? Bill Clinton's populist speeches while campaigning in 1992~

[RiverLover]

THE 1992 CAMPAIGN
Published: April 26, 1992

Bill Clinton:

.... "I want to make just a few sort of basic points about this election. And I'd like begin with two little statistics, one of which was published a day or two ago in America's newspapers and one of which will be out tomorrow. Statistic No. 1: According to the Federal Reserve Board, 1 percent of America's people at the top of the totem pole now have more wealth than the bottom 90 percent, the biggest imbalance in wealth in America since the 1920's right before the Great Depression.

Statistic No. 2, out tomorrow: For the first time in a decade personal income in our country as a whole fell last year. That says we've got problems. And I want to tell you that behind that, I live in a state that is one of the worst states in America, where we were abandoned with farm income going down, factories closing and moving away. The Federal Government cutting back on money for economic development, education, environmental protection. We've got a lot of counties that went through just what you went through in this county.

And in the last 11 years, I had to try to put together an economic strategy to deal with it. I don't like to bore people with statistics, but let me tell you, what's happened here might be worse than what's happened in some other places in Pennsylvania, but it's not all that different from what's happened in America.

For more than two years now, the average middle-class family has worked harder for less money to pay more for health care, for housing, for education, for taxes. Poverty has exploded, especially among working people.

I just got out of a rather bruising campaign in New York State. You might have read about it. But one of the things that really moved me about that was that I met so many courageous people, people you never see on television, who live in the Bronx and Brooklyn, who live in high-crime neighborhoods and get up every day and literally risk their physical security, going to and from jobs that still pay them less than top-level wages, to support children in difficult circumstances, playing by the rules.

For millions and millions of Americans, the dream with which I grew up has been shattered. The ideal that if you work hard and play by the rules you'll be rewarded, you'll do a little better next year than you did last year, your kids will do better than you. But that idea has been devastated for millions of Americans.

How did this happen? I would argue it happened for two reasons. No. 1: We lost our economic leadership. Other nations began to do some things better than we do, and their economies started growing faster and faster as ours slowed down. Big, Simple Ideas

No. 2, and this is why I'm running for President: We elected people to high office who had the wrong response to the problem. And that's what this election is all about. Three or four big, simple ideas, even though the problems are complex.

What is President Bush's theory about what's good about the economy? That the Government would mess up a one-car parade, and you can't trust anybody in politics or Government. So the answer to our economic problems is to make taxes lower on corporations and high-income individuals, and get out of the way and let the market do the rest.

That's their idea. The other day, the President vetoed a bill passed by the Congress that a pro-business Democrat, Lloyd Bentsen from Texas, got through, a tax bill that would have made it easier for plants to modernize their equipment, for people to start small businesses, for people to buy houses, for people to invest in housing in low-income areas. All these things would have been done and George Bush vetoed the bill. Why? Because those incentives were going to be paid for by raising taxes on upper-income people. And he didn't want to do that, because his theory is keep the taxes low on the rich and the corporations and everything will be fine....

Speech continued here~
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/26/us/the-1992-campaign-clinton-s-standard-campaign-speech-a-call-for-responsibility.html

[yallerdawg]

1. I don't want to be cynical, but...

we really bought that populist message. Populist message works.

Then we got 8 years of Clinton, and some say we are still recovering from the changes - the triangulation - we did get in those 8 years.

Those same arguments still stand today! The same message applies word for word!

One of my arguments against the Republicans, they sell the same message over and over but never deliver.

Are we really just the other side of the coin?

[RiverLover]

2. Realistic more than cynical...and that's what we need from everyone in the party to turn this

damaging trend around.

They hook us with populism, then, BAM! Nafta, deregulation of banks & industries, corporate welfare, budget restrictions rather than tax increases for the wealthy.

Ie~

In his first address to the nation on February 15, 1993, Clinton announced his intention to raise taxes to cap the budget deficit.[18] On February 17, 1993, in a nationally televised address to a joint session of Congress, Clinton unveiled his economic plan. The plan focused on deficit reduction rather than a middle class tax cut, which had been high on his campaign agenda.[19] (Clinton was pressured by his advisers, including Robert Rubin formerly of Goldman Sachs, to raise taxes on the theory that a smaller federal budget deficit would reduce bond interest rates.[20])

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Bill_Clinton

The bait & switch is getting old.

We need Democrats to be Democrats once elected. Democrats have great policies & beliefs while running for office. This is the party I back, & vote for. Still holding hope more will be like Sherrod Brown & Bernie & Keith Ellison and be the same people before & after elections.

[nationalize the fed]

5. +330 million

He's really pointing with his middle finger

I never did fall for his bullshit lies and I was called a "Luddite", a Rethug and all manner of ugly insults, much like when I tried to point out that the ACA was just a Republican Insurance scam job. Now I'm leaving the country asap.

[Mnpaul]

13. Here is a good piece on Clinton

Ran as a populist but once elected ran to the 1% and we got nailed in the '94 election. How many times do we have to play this out before they realize that it doesn't work.

A series of ethical scandals further validated the perception of the Clinton administration as part and parcel of a corrupt Washington Court elite. Agriculture Secretary Espy resigned in 1994 after accepting gifts from a firm that had an interest in the regulations set by his department, and the Justice Department appointed special prosecutors to look into possible ethical misdeeds by Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros. Federal prosecutors also indicted House Way and Means Committee Chairman, Dan Rostenkowski, a key supporter of the President’s budget and health plans, for misusing office expenses. On top of all of this was the President and the First Lady’s involvement in the Whitewater affair. The accusations of cozy real estate deals, politically motivated loans, too-good-to-be-true winnings in the cattle futures market market, and campaign finance irregularities comprised exactly the sort of corrupt dealings that modern Country advocates have come to associate with governing elites.

Along with the abandonment of political reform and increasing identification in the mind of the public with Court corruption, the Clinton administration failed to develop economic proposals which would ease the growing economic insecurity that had done much to generate Country antagonisms toward Washington and which needed to be allayed in order to restore public support for activist government. One aspect of this failure in economic policy was the administration’s early decision to sacrifice some of its more populist economic proposals at the alter of deficit reduction. This strategy met with the approval of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and the bond market, but despite Clinton advisor James Carville’s comment that if he were reincarnated that he would want to come back as the bond market, since then "you can intimidate everybody," the bond market has little ability to provide the types of tangible and lasting economic benefits necessary to build and sustain a majority coalition for the Democratic party or to allay Country fears that the government is acting in the interest of ordinary citizens (Phillips 1994: 77 and Woodward 1994: 125-126). The focus on deficit reduction also forced the administration to propose a set of regressive energy and gasoline taxes (the latter of which was finally enacted), which promised to further pinch the pocketbooks of ordinary Americans. Moreover, by so quickly and cavalierly jettisoning some of his central campaign promises, Bill Clinton created more doubts about his promise to end "politics as usual" and increased Country cynicism towards his administration.

The Clinton administration also have erred in its staunch support for NAFTA. Not only does the agreement put further downward pressure on U.S. wages, thereby increasing the income inequality at the heart of Country anger at government, but in aggressively pursuing passage of the agreement, the Clinton administration put itself in conflict with organized labor. By attacking one of the Democratic party’s most important constituencies, the administration succeeded in further weakening the Democratic coalition and exacerbating the party’s organizational decline. Also, the time and resources spent by the White House and labor lobbying for and against the agreement would have been better spent on measures of benefit to both groups, such as lobbying for health care reform, an overhaul of campaign finance, or upgrading the organizational capacity of the Democratic party.

Finally, the Clinton administration failed to deliver on the central component of its economic agenda, health care reform. Health care reform represented the type of a broad-based government benefit program that had engendered popular support from activist government in the past and provided the glue which held together the Democratic party since the New Deal. Passage of health care reform would have helped to ameliorate Court and Country divisions by providing evidence that the government can work to resolve complex issues in a way that benefits average Americans. Alas, with the demise of health care reform, the Democrats failed to use the power of government to revitalize their coalition, and in the process furthered the public’s impression that government is incapable of acting in the national interest.

http://academics.hamilton.edu/government/pklinkne/94.htm

[wyldwolf]

3. I also remember Paul Tsongas calling Clinton "pander bear"

After all, Clinton championed Centrist policies as governor of Arkansas.

This is Riverlover trying to prove Clinton was the 'progressive savior' of the 1992 Democratic primaries.

[99Forever]

4. When the pitch sells the snakeoil...

... they keep using it.

Some things never change.

[winter is coming]

6. Yes. And that's part of why Warren and Sanders are so popular with some.

It's not just rhetoric for them.

I thought Clinton was bullshitting with his populist-speak in '92, but I voted for him, anyway. Not again.

[RiverLover]

8. I had just hit voting age when I voted for Clinton back then. I was so proud.

And what I did hear from him, I liked alot. I believed the rhetoric. Just like with Obama.

So over that.

[Rex]

7. Ouch! That has to hurt the third way types that hate our country.

Yeah all that promise and where are we now 23 years later? In even worse shape with now the top .01% owning half the planet. Of course I knew Bill would do nothing to stop our slide into a casino economy. The owners wanted it that way since Reagan and money has more power than the people do.

Free trade is crap and kills the workforce. It is no different then these libertarian Right to Work states. We need fair trade, which is something neo-liberals hate with a passion.

[RiverLover]

9. You're so right, free trade vs fair trade. Huge difference.

“Free trade” means unrestricted, uncontrolled access to our economy, tariff- and duty-free, for goods made for $4-per-hour or less. We cannot compete with these wages so we are forced to choose between going bankrupt, outsourcing our manufacturing or simply selling out. The U.S. is the largest consumer market in the world. Opening our doors to “free trade” agreements has resulted in job losses, enormous trade deficits and the extinction of many valuable U.S. businesses. Our “free trade” practices are harmful and no longer beneficial.

With so many members of Congress and other notable politicians supporting a number of our damaging “free trade” agreements, it is refreshing to know there are a small number of members of Congress committed to speaking out against the harmful agreements that often wreak havoc on the U.S. economy. One of these is Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Sen. Warren, a staunch supporter of fair trade, has been extremely vocal in her fight against “free trade” agreements. She’s rallied against the Korean – U.S. “free trade” agreement (KORUS) a number of times, and has recently been heard speaking out against the highly secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), calling for greater transparency when negotiating these harmful agreements. In fact, she even sent a letter to President Barack Obama’s nominee to head U.S. trade negotiations that detailed her concerns about President Obama’s lack of transparency in the TPP negotiations.

The root of Sen. Warren’s concern regarding “free trade” agreements stems from the damage that they can and have done to the United States economy. We as a nation have already seen the disastrous implications that resulted from NAFTA. Entire cities were left in shambles, like Detroit. The manufacturing industry was all but destroyed and outsourced to foreign countries, leaving thousands of Americans unemployed. Unfortunately, KOR-US is showing similar signs of economic calamity.

In regards to manufacturing and outsourcing, Sen. Warren believes we need to shift the focus from imports and instead focus on manufacturing American-made products. She believes we must go back to our roots, back to what made America great. That means innovation is key so we can invent and create new products to sell to the rest of the world and aid our ailing economy.

Because she is also a supporter of fair trade, Sen. Warren believes that, to maintain a successful economy, the U.S. must strengthen its trade laws with our trading partners and demand those same trading partners respect workers’ rights and environmental standards.

http://economyincrisis.org/content/elizabeth-warren-and-her-crusade-against-disastrous-free-trade-agreements

[Octafish]

10. Gee. I wonder what happened in office to change his position?

Perhaps he heard about a quadrillion bold new ideas on Wealth Management, say, repealing the New Deal law separating the taxpayer from responsibility for bad bets by the Wall Street banksters?

http://financialservicesinc.ubs.com/revitalizingamerica/SenatorPhilGramm.html

[Nye Bevan]

11. He slammed the 1% by raising the top income tax rate from 31% to 39.6%.

http://www.cch.com/wbot2013/029IncomeTaxRates.asp

The biggest increase in the top income tax rate since 1965.

[RiverLover]

15. Pre-Reagan, it was 70%. But that's better than lowering it. Gotta give him credit there. nt

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

12. yup - he pledged in his '92 convention speech that we would "stop coddling Chinese dicttaors"

then he gave them permanent Most Favored Nation trading status, even change the term to Normalized Trade Relations to disguise what he was doing.

Also, we got NAFTA and GATT, thanks to Bill.

[sadoldgirl]

14. He changed all of this by

simply calling us the NEW Democrats!

[UTUSN]

16. He was something, all right. He blew everybody out of the water in the primary debates.

I had no idea previously who he was, but then I ran into an Arkansas couple and told them their governor was GREAT and they said thank you.

Fast forward to the end of the movie Primary Colors where a supporter (like me, through the ugliness) said, "We stuck by you through it all. Now don't go breaking our heart."

And, of course, he did.

[AZ Progressive]

17. It's the old Good Cop - Bad Cop routine

And the American people, including the lower party members, keep on falling for it.