>Brad,
> But those folks got to be in charge of the US Congress
>at least partly due to reactions by the public against
>perceived bumbling and goofups by the Clinton
>Administration in its first two years. Would there have
>been a Republican takeover of Congress if Clinton had
>proposed a Canadian-style national health insurance plan
>rather than the botched mess that he did propose (and then
>couldn't get passed)?
Hmmm. So we appear to have slipped from:
>> >Carroll Cox: "Clinton is the leader of the anti-reform forces in the U.S."
to:
John Rosser: "the first Clinton Administration (1993-94) was incompetent"
These two positions are very different.
I have a more nuanced view of Clinton Mark One (in which I worked). In my view it consisted of:
(i) a national security and international affairs policy staff who genuinely were incompetent...
(ii) a macroeconomics policy staff who were very, very competent (and who quickly came to the conclusion that the only feasible strategy was one of "internationalist Eisenhower Republicanism," a strategy that I think has been much more successful than I would have dared hope...)
(iii) a social policy staff (David Ellwood, Mary Jo Bane, Wendell Primus, and company) who had interesting ideas for how to productively channel more resources to the poor.
(iv) a microeconomic policy staff (Bob Reich, Larry Katz, Gene Sperling) who had good ideas about marginal things that could be done to beef up the union movement and improve workers' opportunities.
(v) a health policy staff (Ira Magaziner) who had the twin faults of being way out of his depth and of thinking that he was a genius--smarter than everyone else--and who as a result put forward a plan that had all the defects of incrementalism and all the defects of radical reform.
(vi) a president who got buffaloed into agreeing with the agenda of (ii), and then ignored (iii) and (iv) completely while betting all of his political capital on (v), with disastrous results.
I have a very unnuanced and negative view of Clinton Mark Two (1995-1996). And Clinton Mark Three (1997-1998) has done little save serve as a target to distract Gingrich and company from undertaking destructive actions.
Brad DeLong