Is Obama the Bizarro Clinton?
Team Obama is finally trotting out this campaign meme: Obamanomics means a return to the booming 1990s economy. Over on CBS's Face the Nation yesterday morning, former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin told host Bob Schieffer—who had just asked whether the economy, which grew 1.9 percent last quarter, is in a recession or headed toward a depression—that Obama would bring back the higher tax rates of the Clinton era, "which brought us the longest economic expansion of all times." And there was former Clinton administration economist Laura Tyson on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer:
A final quick comment is that we need to understand that what Senator Obama is proposing bodily on taxes is rolling back some of the Bush tax cuts for those who make over $250,000 a year to levels you saw in the 1990s. I will only point out again the 1990s had the longest and strongest economic expansion in our history.
A few thoughts here:
1) It must have been Opposite Day in Obamaland. See, Bill Clinton tossed his pricey infrastructure agenda in order to focus on balancing the budget. Obama wants to do just the opposite. He wants to spend hundreds of billions on an infrastructure and energy agenda and merely get the budget on a "path" to being balanced at some point in the future. So basically, we are talking about $500 billion deficits—or more—as far as the eye can see. So, isn't Obama doing exactly the opposite of Clinton here?
2) Clinton signed a capital gains tax cut. Obama wants to increase capital gains taxes from 15 percent to at least 25 percent. Again, bizarro economics.
3) The '90s expansion was really two expansions. After the 1993 Clinton tax increases, the economy grew 3.2 percent—a so-so performance coming out of the 1990-91 recession.(By the way, the four quarters of 1992 saw GDP growth of 4.0 percent, 3.9 percent, 4.0 percent, 4.5 percent, so the Clinton economic team really started out on third but somehow think they hit a triple.) But after the 1997 cap gains cut, the economy grew at an average annual rate of 4.2 percent. When people refer to the '90s economic boom, it's really the 1997-2000 era that they're taking about.
Tags: economics | Barack Obama | Bill Clinton
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Reader Comments
obama
senator obama hardly had much experence as a senator,now people think he can run a country.wake up america obama has a great gift of words with outany substance.what this country needs is a man that has real knowledge of our country like JOHN McCAIN
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1990's Economy
The economic growth in the 1990's was driven by two one-time events: the Y2K date computer fix and the initial commericialization of the Internet.
The Y2K computer fix encouraged computer and software companies to provide solutions to this problem. The Internet buildout featured telecom companies buying network routers from the likes of Cisco and Juniper, PC's from Dell, HP and others, Ebay, Yahoo, Doubleclick, etc.
These events overcame the economic drag of the tax increases.
Bizarro Obama
What is TRULY BIZARRO is that the only candidates the "parties" can come up with are Obama and McCain. The "parties" don't stand for anything (ie there is no "Platform" anymore)except,deceit, debauchery, dishonesty, do-nothing, let's fool the public some more etc. Since Clinton, who except for his supreme foolishness with monica, was a terrific President, respected thru the world, this country has been so politically bankrupt it is TRULY scary!!! The Congress is the sorriest excuse for those who supposedly represent the people ever, and we have had some truly sorry ones in the past! AND HERE WE HAD HOPED THAT THEY WOULD GET THE MESSAGE AFTER THE LAST ELECTION. Either they are stupid, or they just don't care as long as they get theirs. (or both!!??) Guess!?! I love my country and all it stands for, but i hate the people that represent it to the rest of the world because "we" come off looking like rich, haughty, spoiled, smug bullies! we are in a DEPRESSION people that rule, and have been for 7 years. The ONLY difference between now and l929 is CREDIT!!! So many of OUR OWN are fighting all over the world, with pay and equipment that would shame the Boy Scouts,defending those of us at home that are hungry, sick and unable to get good care, or a job,skilled or not - forget benefits, uneducated, thrown away with the jobs, so the fat cats can live well. Sorry, i digress. Bush, Obama, McCain - bizarro? scary? pathetic?
Obama's "advisors" are scarrier than Bush's and THAT IS GOING SOME! None of them know their butts from their elbows, but they spew their garbage anyway, and those idiots listen!! Obama's got 2 that he's "proud to listen to". That other "reverend" what's his name, is pretty scarry too. At least McCain's "advisors" are smart enough to stay behind the scenes.
EXCELLENT ARTICLE/QUESTION Mr. Pethokoukis. Keep up the good work. Any wonder I really do not want to vote this time? I was tired of voting for the "lesser of 2 evils" - this time, there really is no choice - in my humble opinion. Watch out Congress - I WILL vote, like it or not.
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