Clinton was really good at taking credit for things.
Witness the comments in this thread regarding balancing the budget, and welfare reform. Both came about because the Republicans got control of Congress, and Clinton actively worked against both. He vetoed the welfare reform bill twice, and finally let it become law when it was clear that the Republicans had the votes to pass it over his veto.
The only major initiative of his Presidency that he pushed, and got passed, was NAFTA. Health care reform fell apart, his racial reconcilation didn’t achieve anything (not that it was really meant to), and the rest of his terms he was just dealing with his scandals.
FWIW, I think he was the best campaigner in American history. Apart from NAFTA, he hoarded his political capital and never got behind anything unpopular. He didn’t really have any vision for the country beyond getting re-elected, and the Reagan boom carried him along so he didn’t need any.
Clinton was well on his way to eliminating the deficit spending even with his original all-Democrat Congress. I don’t think that makes him a great president, but claiming that the Republican Congress is the only thing that got the budget balanced is as accurate as claiming that he “caused” the general prosperity that he rode through his term.
I admire Bill Clinton most because he was subjected to 8+ years of the most abusive and partisan attacks imaginable and he took it like a man. He never backed down from a good fight and maintained a positive attitude throughout. He is as smart as a whip and didn’t need to be protected from the public by his handlers. (I don’t want to make too many comparisons to the current §resident, but has anyone noticed that since the war began, GWB has only visited military bases and weapons factories?)
Uh, Shodan, Reagan was out of office for four years when Clinton got there. There was a recession during the Bush years that ended during the election, too late to get Bush the Elder re-elected.
Reagan boom? As I recall, also, the recovery in Clinton’s first four years was slow, only taking off in the second term of his administration. In the first half, conservatives jumped all over him for slowing down the economy with his tax increase. In the second half, suddenly it became…the Reagan boom. Even though by then he’d been out of office for 8 years.
Amazing how his influence waned when the economy was slow, and waxed when the economy improved. Do I get to call any recovery we get from here the Clinton boom?
The most famous example being the “inner-city welfare queen” who had nine kids out of wedlock, gamed the welfare system for child support, and amassed enough money so she didn’t have to do any work and could afford to toot around town in a shiny new Cadillac. Not that any such person was ever found, but Reagan sure liked that story.
I always find it funny when people speak of the Reagan boom talking about the Clinton years. The technologies that drove the economy during the Clinton years had to a large degree not even been invented in the Reagan days, and to the degree they had, they were a shadow of what they became later on. Not to mention that a lot of them were only partially developed in the US and owe a lot to Europe and Japan.
I think Clinton deserves credit for doing something Republicans usually speak highly of. He knew when to keep the government out of a problem and let things solve themselves. Of course this means that Clinton’s opponents can say he did nothing about the problem. It’s a matter of interpretation.
The economy was generally better during the years of the Clinton administration than it was during the years of the other presidential administrations before or after his. Therefore, in my opinion, anyone who argues Clinton had no effect upon or harmed the economy has the burden of proof on their position.
I think that once the immediate partisanship fades, historians will find a lot of similarities between the Presidential styles of Reagan and Clinton. Both led in a very personal style, both depended on their own charisma to deflect problems, both portrayed themselves as “common men” who rose through their own abilities, both sought to appeal to the better nature of people, and both had strong-willed wives they relied upon.
On the subject of Ronald Reagan’s racial divisiveness, let us not forget where he chose to annouce his candidacy for the presidency in 1979. This ex-Governor of California decided that Philadelphia, Mississippi was just the place. Of course, Philadelphia, Mississippi back then was ground zero for the KKK, as well as the location of the execution of three civil rights workers (Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney) by Klansmen in 1964. But I am sure that was all just a coincidence and that Reagan wasn’t trying to send some sort of coded message to Southern whites.:rolleyes:
While I have no respect for Reagan on racial issues, I think we ought to not smear him with urban legends.
He announced his candidacy on November 13, 1979, at the Hilton Hotel in New York City (various left-wing glurge sites, notwithstanding).
I do not recall where he was when he made his 1975 announcement for the 1976 race, but I would have to see better evidence than claims by partisan sites to believe it was Philadelphia, MS.
The following arguments can be (and are) used by Democrats or Republicans to explain away something good that occurs during the adminstration of a President from the other party:
He doesn’t deserve any credit because a Congress full of the other party really did it.
He doesn’t deserve any credit because it really was just a lingering effect from a previous President’s administration.
He doesn’t deserve any credit because what he did was so obvious that any President would have done the same.
He doesn’t deserve any credit because it had nothing to do with who was President.
Or if all else fails:
Okay, he did one thing right. Now let’s talk about all the things he did wrong.
Bottom line is politics is a highly subjective thing and it’s impossible to “prove” whether or not someone did a good or bad job.
That is a strong claim – do you have a cite to any evidence?
The Republicans.
And since the Democrats were in control for almost all of Reagan’s terms (House, all eight years; Senate, six out of eight years), they deserve credit for the Reagan boom. In fact, the economy was in much worse shape until the Dems swept the Senate in the 1982 elections – that’s what really got the recovery started.
My last paragraph is complete baloney. I don’t believe it, and I hope no one else does.
A President can have, in my opinion, a very small positive impact on the economy (especially while he’s in office). The impact can be larger in the negative direction (e.g., if he just starts printing money, or drastically and recklessly raises or cuts taxes. BTW, that last statement was not aimed at any President in particular).
The fact that the public assigns the current President so much responsibility for the state of the economy does not make it true.
On preview, I strongly agree with Little Nemo’s post.
Dear F.U.: Look in one of my earlier posts in this thread. there is a link that backs me up. Or, just do a Google search on “Reagan Philadelphia Mississippi” and you will find many additional sources for this info.
