The Real Clinton Economic Record
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The Real Clinton Economic Record
Hint:
It's not what he claims.
By Michael Catanzaro,
reporter for The Evans-Novak Political Report
s his presidency comes
to a close, Bill Clinton is desperately groping for a legacy that overshadows
impeachment. It seems that he wants credit for the thing that rendered
impeachment irrelevant in the public mind: the economy.
Clinton enthusiastically assumes full responsibility for the longest economic
expansion in American history, as he demonstrated in his expansive speech
at the Democratic Convention in August. And his lame-duck aides never
shrink from reinforcing this bunk.
Jake Siewert, Clinton's lame-duck press secretary, and a former aide at
the National Economic Council, assiduously spun the myth of the Clinton
economic record on Monday at a White House press briefing.
Siewert scoffed at Dick Cheney's observation on Meet the Press
that America may be "on the heels of a recession." "We understand that
Mr. Cheney has a lot of hands-on experience in big-time economic downturns,"
Siewert said over the din of guffaws from the White House press corps.
"But I don't think that makes him qualified to assess the current state
of our economy."
Siewert categorically dismissed Cheney's comments, notwithstanding credible
evidence that the economy is slowing (Alan Greenspan warned as much in
a speech delivered yesterday). Then, with characteristic Clintonian arrogance,
he said Clinton eliminated the deficit, created the surplus, spurred high
growth and productivity rates, and reversed the Reagan-Bush-Cheney decline.
Siewert's petulant spinning is another example of the fiction that bumbling
Republicans screwed up the economy, and Bill Clinton's brilliance and
foresight turned it around. It was a mantra of the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign,
when the Clintonites falsely labeled the economy in 1992 as the worst
"since the Great Depression" (that, admittedly, was probably the handiwork
of Gore).
In fact, the economy was on an upward path, after a very mild recession,
18 months prior to Bill Clinton's election. Siewert should consult
Clinton's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and its June 1999 mid-session
review, in which it conceded that the "economic expansion…began in
April 1991."
Or he could go to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the
most respected monitor of the business cycle, which flatly reports that
the eight-month recession (wow! some Depression!) under President George
Bush "ended in March 1991." According to an NBER spokeswoman, the "truth
is that the seeds for the recovery were sown during the Bush era."
During the briefing, Siewert boasted that "growth has averaged 4 percent
throughout this administration." But that's only half the story.
According to the Economic Report of the President submitted to Congress
this past February, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) began rising annually
at a steady 4% clip after the Republicans defeated Clinton's health-care
initiative; took over Congress in 1994; and passed tax cuts and welfare
reform. Prior to that, GDP growth stagnated far below the 4%-plus-rate
the economy has averaged from 1996 to 1999.
Moreover, Siewert ignored just how lucky Clinton is. It was Reagan's legacy
that handed him the essential foundation for booming growth. Reagan's
supply-side tax cuts reduced top marginal tax rates from 70% to 28%. Siewert
also apparently forgot that Reagan's tax cuts ushered in 92 straight months
of economic growth (from November 1982 to July 1990) without a recession.
The Joint Economic Committee estimates that without Reagan's tax cuts,
taxpayers would be paying 55% more in federal taxes this year, or an increase
of $871 billion.
Reagan helped reverse a stagflating economy even after having inherited
double-digit inflation and interest rates - 13.5% and 20%, respectively
- from Carter's last year in office. Under Reagan, they plunged two-thirds,
while unemployment fell 20%.
And Siewert should know that the economy prospered largely because Clinton's
lame-brained economic policies were stymied by the Republican Congress.
June O'Neil, the director of the Congressional Budget Office from 1995
to 1999, noted that the economy's success stems from the "absence of legislation
that meddle
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