Would The Economy Have Been Any Different If Bill Clinton Had Been President 2001-2008?

[Median Democrat]

I am just wondering because a separate thread I started on an article regarding Laurence Summers has devolved into a Bill Clinton hate-fest with folks blaming him for the current economic meltdown. Skwmom and Two Americas said that they would not prefer the 1990s economy to the current economy. So, let me try to get a more focused discussion.

I believe that the economy under Bill Clinton grew for most Americans, and that Bill Clinton's policies, including his efforts to balance the budget, which resulted in decreased long term interest rates, helped the economy.

Anyone want to argue that Bill Clinton caused the current Great Recession?

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[LSparkle]

1. Yes ... because 1) he wouldn't have given the rich those tax cuts and ...

2) he wouldn't have launched a "war on terror", but
would have gone after UBL and co. in the same way he
pursued the people who attacked the World Trade Center
in '93 -- as a police action, not a war, requiring a
HUGE increase in military spending.

Even though I'm no fan of Robert Rubin or Larry Summers,
NO ONE on Clinton's team would have agreed to those reckless
tax cuts for the rich that Dumbya made his big priority once
he got his hands on the budget surplus.

[npk]

5. I agree the tax cuts killed the economy

No way Clinton would have done that.

[Skwmom]

18. Don't you think exporting American jobs and imploding our financial

system had something to do with it? And Clinton AND the Republicans both played a hand in accomplishing that.

[Fire1]

2. Hell yes! No doubt in my mind.

[theoldman]

3. For the middle class, the Clinton years were the best during the past 100 years.

In no way did he cause the economical meltdown or the collapse of the Dot Com stock market either. Any attempt to blame the meltdown on Clinton is just a cover up for G W Bush supporters. There are several books out that explain how it started with Reagan.

[Skwmom]

23. No. GW Bush Supporters spend their time defending the

many indefensible acts of GWB. Hmmm... now who does that remind me of, defending acts that are truly indefensible? Oh yeah, one person is Bill Clinton. On Larry King, after Katrina hit Larry asked Bush I to address the criticism of his son over his handling of Katrina. Bush I turns to Clinton and says why don't you answer this. And he did, fully supporting the incompetent idiot.

It started with Reagan and continued under Bush, Clinton, and Bush II.

Clinton gave us NAFTA, media consolidation,favored nation status for China, and the repeal of regulation which was enacted to prevent another financial collapse like what we suffered DECADES ago. What a heck of a track record. And now he goes around getting paid hundreds of thousands for "speeches." Hmm.... I can imagine people paying that kind of money for influence, but for a mere speech? Even Bubba, as smooth as he is, isn't paid that kind of money for just talking.

[MadHound]

35. For one who's moniker is theoldman, your statement is really strange,

That is unless you're old enough that your memory is starting to go. Because the uncontested best economic times for this country was post WWII, late forties through the late sixties. After that our economy starts a sure but steady nosedive. At best the Clinton years were a leveling off period, when we didn't lose any ground, but that came at a price as the wizards of finance laid the groundwork for the disaster we're watching unfold now.

[hedgehog]

43. That depended on where you lived. In my part of the country, the middle class saw their children

struggling to find work and/or moving to Nevada, California or the South.

[Drunken Irishman]

4. Yes.

There would have been a recession and slowed economic growth, but Clinton would not have allowed the bottom to erode as Bush did from 2002 to 2008. Plus, Clinton never bought the false line that tax cuts automatically stimulate the economy, so it's very likely he would have gone hard at the first sign of economic weakness.

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. Continued elimination of the deficit would have cushioned the blow

But Clinton was a deregulation guy as well. That said, Clinton actually tried, for the most part, to enforce the regulations on the books, unlike Bush. You wouldn't have had a completely non-acting Securities and Exchange Commission, for example, and Clinton likely would have ridden herd on a sleeping Federal Reserve. Maybe. Clinton was a corporatist, even more aggressively so than Obama. The recession still would have hit, the housing bubble likely would have hit as well, but the downturn would have been far less severe, maybe akin to the recession in the early 1990's.

[Jennicut]

8. I totally agree. Clinton was a corpratist type and more to the center then Obama but it would have

been a recession.

[Iterate]

7. Nearly full employment

seemed to be a big factor in the increased tax revenue and balanced budget.

Bush-41 took unemployment from 5.4% to 7.3%, Clinton from 7.3% to 3.9%, and Bush43 quickly pushed it up, finally to 7.6% in January. Republicans hate full employment almost as much as they hate unions and it was practically the first thing Bush did in office.

The Bureau of Labor has a nice page for simple charts: http://www.bls.gov/data/

[Skwmom]

24. With jobs exiting this country, explain to me how we would have

had full employment? The only reason unemployment didn't sky rocket sooner is the phony housing bubble. Now we are using government funding to keep people employed. But how long do you think that will last considering this country is BROKE?

[Iterate]

31. Yes, that seems to be the core problem.

I agree that good wages and full employment are the core problem, yet no one at the top seems to be acknowledging it.

Even before Reagan, the Nixon administration really, people have been struggling to keep their standard of living in the face of falling real wages, first by increasing household income by having more women and teenagers enter the job market in the 70's and 80's, then by increasing CC debt in the 90's, and finally by drawing out phony home equity. Democratic administrations have only briefly stemmed the tide.

And though I agree wholeheartedly with social safety net programs, you're right, they can't be sustained without income. In the end that safety net is a subsidy to business for cheap wages and a level of unemployment that guaranties a compliant workforce. So I would think that a more equitable distribution of salaries within companies and increasing the circulation of money within the economy (i.e., ending military expenditures overseas, a self-sufficient energy balance, and elimination of overly cheap imported goods) would be two places to start back on the path to job growth.

It's not like there isn't enough useful work to.

[amandabeech]

45. I think that returning manufacturing to our shores would help increase the circulation of money

in our economy.

We have a huge balance of trade deficit and that makes increasing the velocity of money here much more difficult.

It will even limit the net effect of the stimulus bill, because aside from rent, a lot of what we buy is imported or contained a lot of imported content. That's even true at the supermarket with imported produce, seafood and meat, and household products that undoubtedly contain many imported ingredients.

[Skwmom]

25. Delete duplicate.

[hedgehog]

44. Full employmnet maybe, but what happened to wages?

[Autumn]

9. Yes.

The current mess belongs to George Fucking Bush. If Bill Clinton or Barack Obama had been President there would have been oversight and this mess would never have happened. It takes a fucking republican to screw up the economy every time. And anyone who doesn't see that must be going through their first Administration.

[McCamy Taylor]

10. And he would not have perverted the law to protect predatory lenders

the way that W. did. Or bankrupted us paying for an endless war for oil in Iraq. Or used the Katrina reconstruction as his personal slush fund the way that Rove did.

[Barack_America]

11. Of course. The economy would have been drastically better.

That should go without saying for members of this site.

[dionysus]

12. i think NAFTA and outsourcing would still have hurt us, but the tax policy would counteract that a

bit...
so i think it would definately be a lot better

[Skwmom]

20. What good is a tax policy when you have no job? Ask the

jobless in Ohio and other states that have seen the factories closed and their jobs shipped overseas.

[avaistheone1]

34. The super rich have not been paying there fair share of taxes for almost 25 years -

ever since the Reagan tax cuts.

Those tax cuts for the super wealthy need to be repealed. Their tax rate should go back to 50%.

[Skwmom]

60. The bait and switch of the Reagan tax cuts.

While cutting the rates they took away the deduction for car and credit card interest, gutted medical deductions, etc.

[damntexdem]

13. More apt to ask had Al Gore been prez in those years.

And the answer is 'yes.'

[AtomicKitten]

14. It took a decade for the deregulation done in the 1990s to collapse the system.

[Median Democrat]

15. With Enron and Worldcom in 2003, Didn't The Republicans Bear Some Responsibility?

Okay, lets say that some deregulation passed in 1999 turned out to be a bad idea. Well, in 2003, when Enron and Worldcom were blowing up due to accounting scandals, shouldn't Bush have done something? Doesn't that brake the chain of causation?

Indeed, didn't Bush just focus on a few high profile prosecutions to take the heat off any effort at regulatory reform?

Finally, look at Bernie Maddoff. Its not like what he did was made legal by Bill Clinton. It was always illegal, but the SEC under Chris Cox ignored complaints by whistle blowers. Yet, would you argue that this $50 billion fraud was the fault of Bill Clinton?

[AtomicKitten]

29. Of course they do, in fact, it was like letting the genie out of the bottle.

The deregulation was just the beginning and the Republicans have a history of building on a bad move and making things much, much worse. But we know that and as Democrats we have to fess up to our complicity in the course of events. That's why not many people are thrilled with Obama recycling Clinton economic retreads and for good reason.

[avaistheone1]

36. It certainly didn't take long. About 10 years to undermine 50 years of hard

work. It's criminal what the neocons have done. But they could not have done it without the Democrats help. That is why we need to keep our politicians accountable regardless of what side of the aisle they sit on.

[uponit7771]

16. Yes, the middle class dollar would go longer and no housing bubble

[Yavin4]

17. The Budget Would Have Stayed In Balance

And the surplus would have been used to shore up SS. The Fed would not have dropped rates to 1% which set off housing speculation.

[JayMusgrove]

19. How about asking your question with GORE... the man America

actually elected?

Gore would have prevented 9/11.

Gore would not have given tax cuts to the rich, nor allowed Hummers to be sold, nor have allowed credit default swaps and other mischief to have continued for 8 years.

Yes, we might have had a few trillions more in debt, or we might have been in the most wonderful boom times ever, and banks would not have been able to sell their loans without honest appraisals.

Gore would have saved Obama from these disasters. In my opinion....

[jeanpalmer]

21. Between the war and the tax cuts

W put us in a real hole -- ran up $3 trillion of debt. We could use that money right now, would probably solve the economic problem we have. Clinton wouldn't have done either of those. We'd be much better off.

[Skip Intro]

22. Some people have a condition causing them to froth at the mouth at the mere mention of Clinton.

Bill or Hillary.

Some wild hatred that has been in evidence here for something like a year and a half now.

That some would chose to have this economy over the economy we saw under Clinton is proof enough, imho.

No, Bill Clinton is not to blame for the state of the economy eight years out. Of course not.

A freep friend (I have a couple) today blamed the current economic crisis on Jimmy Carter.

Maybe it's something in the water?

[Skwmom]

26. Hmmm... so legislation only has short term, not long term impact?

And what exactly are you basing that assumption on?

I can't see how Carter is to blame. If this country would have listened to him, we would be a lot better off right now.

[Skip Intro]

27. Hmmmm...define long term.

Clinton left with a huge surplus, relatively low unemployment and interest rates, strong markets, and respect from most of the rest of the world. And your argument is that after years of g w bush's economic policies, not the least of which is an ongoing war that has cost trillions, have nothing to do with our current economic state, but rather that what we are experiencing are long-term effects of Bill Clinton's policies?

[Skwmom]

38. Of course, we are experiencing the effects of Bush policies.

But to ignore the devastating impact that Clinton policies have had on this country is no different than Bush supporters who refuse to realize how much he hurt this country.

[Median Democrat]

40. I Think Bush Breaks That Chain Of Causation

Between Bush's Iraq war, tax cuts, failure to enforce regulations, and failure to take meaningful efforts to address energy independence, I am not sure you can draw say that Bill Clinton is substantially responsible for the current economic crisis.

In particular, look at Bernie Maddoff. What he did was always illegal. It was not a question of regulation. It was the fact that regulators did not enforce the existing regulations.

This is why enforcement is as important or more so than merely promulgating regulations, and Bush cut enforcement. Look at the FDIC. It went from 15,000 employees following Clinton to 4,000 employees in 2007 due to Bush cutting such programs.

Go ahead and defend Bush, and argue that Clinton is mostly responsible, because I just don't see it.

[Hippo_Tron]

28. Probably a recession but definitely a much much softer landing

Clinton (or Gore) probably would've used Enron/Worldcom to push for more regulation than just Sarbanes/Oxley.

[stillcool]

30. What would we be like today..

without the Iraq War? I remember reading the Taliban were in D.C. negotiating with the U.S. over the pipeline business in September of 2001. The Bush/Cheney cabal wanted nothing to do with negotiating contracts. I think from the day they took office, until the day they left, they went about the people's business like they were at a fire sale. Taking everything they could grab.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

32. One word: pushing NAFTA and "free" trade

and then pushing through welfare "reform," which is going to come back to bite us because it limits LIFETIME eligibility to five years. That's a big help to someone who got off of welfare after five years and now is jobless again.

[avaistheone1]

37. Yet these policies continue to be supported by both the Bush and Obama administrations

despite all the damage they have caused here and around the world.

I think that is insane, particularly given the state of the economy in this country.

[Deja Q]

56. Insane or planned.

Maybe there's a greater good, though the current suffering from "globalization" is pathetic. Especially when "globalization" would otherwise imply "expansion" rather than "migration".

[Skwmom]

59. No. If that was the case, we wouldn't have started with trading agreements

that made it easy to ABUSE workers world-wide. But good try. I loved the, this has all been caused by good intention progressives.

You know, I think I've figured out why so many true progressives have been right on so many of the major issues of the day. They weren't blinded by greed or power hungry.

[mvd]

64. Signing the Glass-Steagall repeal was a bad move

It had been in place since Roosevelt and was one of the major checks on our system. Subprime mortgages rose immediately after, and then ballooned when Bush became pResident. I know the Repukes passed it and it was veto-proof, but if Clinton had been against it from the start, it might not have gotten to the "compromise" that passed by wide margins.

[MadHound]

33. Caused the current recession, no. Enabled it to reach full rampaging power, most certainly

Hell, Clinton deregulated the financial sector more than Reagan ever dreamed of doing, undoing regulations that had stood for sixty years. Not to mention NAFTA, granting China most favored nation trading status, oh, and the gap between the wealthy and the rest of us first widening to a record breaking chasm.

Clinton's economy was much like the Roaring Twenties, built a go go economy on a speculative bubble, one that got pumped, and partially dumped when the tech sector started going bust. However Greespan and his boys managed to transfer it all over to the housing sector, which became the new bubble.

To say Clinton is solely responsible for this mess is disingenuous, to say that he has no responsibility is as equally disingenuous. There's lots of blame for this mess, one that has its roots going back decades.

[Median Democrat]

41. Look at the FDIC - 15,000 Employess Under Clinton, 4,000 Under Bush in 2007

I wouldn't lay most of the blame on deregulation under Bill Clinton. It is a cause, but the primary cause?

First, Bush substantially cut enforcement by reducing enforcement personnel.

Second, Bush could have re-regulated at anytime during the past 8 years. He didn't even after Enron and Worldcom.

[Skwmom]

51. About your original post.

Who ever said that today's economy was preferable to the 1990s. What I have said again and again is that Clinton pushed policies and passed legislation that has greatly contributed to the debacle we now face.

We haven't had a real economy for decades. It's been one phony bubble after another.

[Skwmom]

52. Sure there were a lot of FDIC employees. The S&L crisis was still

happening. Why do you think the FDIC is now on another hiring spree?

You really think an army of regulators will keep another financial debacle from occurring? Take a look at what has happened to government employees when they've tried to ring the alarm bells. They were driven from government by Summers and the other idiots.

[Skwmom]

50. Did anyone say Clinton was solely responsible for this mess?

It began with Reagan, continued with Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II. What I find unbelievable is the people who still refuse to acknowledge the part, and a large part at that, that Clinton played in this debacle. But then again, there are still people who think Bush did a great job.

[firefox28]

39. It's Summers

Who argued against regulation and who argued against an Asian Monetary Fund during the Asian Financial Crisis. It's Summers who "pushed" people like Stiglitz out of the World Bank in order to maintain neo-liberal dominance.

[hedgehog]

42. It might have been a different flavor of bad. For my entire adult life,

since about 1976, the economy in the Rust Belt has meant that city after city was wiped out just as thoroughly as New Orleans after Katrina. Youngstown and Detroit are in tough shape, Cleveland and Buffalo aren't far behind. It was slo-mo, and people justified it by talking about the new economy and the need to abandon manufacturing. I think what we are seeing now is the end result of basing an economy on financial instruments. Everybody was making a fortune until the day the profits went poof and the money was just gone. Also, Bill Clinton for whatever reason did not move to get us off of fossil fuels.


Maybe we can't go back to manufacturing, but what we have now isn't working, either.

[amandabeech]

46. Manufacturing provided a balance to the paper economy.

It also helped keep us independent and helped more families live decently.

I'm from Michigan and destruction of communities there over the past 30 has been horrible. So many lost lives, and so many families pulled apart. It is just sickening.

I don't see Obama helping much, considering that no one in his auto team has had any experience in manufacturing, let alone any experience with autos. He seems content to let the investment bankers run GM. I saw investment bankers try to run companies back in the '80s, and all they did was extract cash until the companies were skeletons and really could barely survive. I lot didn't make it.

[hedgehog]

49. I think Obama needs to see his "experts" make a bad mistake,

then he'll go with his gut. John Kennedy had to go through the Bay of Pigs to figure out that he was smarter than all the experts put together.

[amandabeech]

54. I sincerely hope that you are right, and that Obama sees the light

much sooner rather than later.

With respect to the automakers, once they're done, they're done.

[wyldwolf]

47. Clinton hatefests are usually Clenis envy

[Skwmom]

58. Oh yes, I've always wanted to sell-out the working class in America

, to implement policies that devastate this country, and to collect hundreds of thousands for delivering "speeches" (i.e., selling political influence). It's been my lifelong dream.

[depakid]

63. And go on a deregulatory frenzy!

With NO regard for the probable consequences- even when (via LTCM) they were right there in front of my eyes!

[wyldwolf]

65. well

1. Zero proof anything he did caused what you're claiming
2. You're not qualified to get paid for speeches

[wyldwolf]

48. Isn't a better question, "Would The Economy Have Been Any Different If AL GORE had been president?"

Seriously. He (probably) would have continued with what the Clinton team did right, corrected what the Clinton team did wrong (when it became obvious), would have never invaded Iraq or given the rich tax cuts.

:shrug:

[Overseas]

53. Bill Gates and I have a median income of billions of dollars !!

They said the wealth was going to trickle down but seems like it has mostly trickled up.

But averaged with Bill Gates and John Thain, I am super rich !!

[Deja Q]

55. That graph needs a cost of living index. In 1968, a good car* had cost $5000. Today? $50000.

Have wages matched the cost of living?

No.

They've gone down.


* Chevrolet Corvette, Coupe model. 1968 price: $5000. 2007 price: $50000.
(I'm sure there are other cars, whose temporal comparisons aren't as wide...)



On edit: Wrong year. Changed '1965' to '1968'.

[Median Democrat]

57. The Graph Is Adjusted For Inflation

[mvd]

61. There would not have been economic collapse

Maybe a small recession in the ebb and flow of the economy. The poor, middle class, and American workers wouldn't share in the prosperity as much as I would like, but I don't think Clinton would have allowed this kind of exploitation.

[depakid]

62. Based on the record, regulatory and monetary policies wouldn't have been that different

Possibly the FBI wouldn't have been squelched in their efforts to investigate mortgage fraud... though that's purely speculation, since other matters of corruption were also left to fester during the Clinton years.

[Median Democrat]

66. I Don't Agree - Arthur Levitt Was Far More Effective Than Chris Cox

I think it is a terrible mistake to buy into the idea that there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats. I don't see Bill Clinton pushing the envelop on regulation, but he did appoint Arthur Levitt, who I believe was a far more effective regulator than Chris Cox. Also, in terms of fiscal policy, Bill Clinton was far different from Dubya with respect to fiscal responsibility. Paul O'Neill in his biography bitched about Cheney telling him that deficits don't matter. In sharp contrast, Rubin complained to Bill Clinton about deficits, and Bill Clinton did listen. The crucial difference I think is that Dubya did not have an economic policy, except pander to his base. It was a political operation, not an economic policy.