> If nothing else, does Clinton get credit - as argued in THE AGENDA - for
> successfully ransoming lower interest rates in exchange for cutting the
> deficit?
> -- Nathan Newman
-So when Clinton cuts the deficit, he shows a commitment to fight for working -people to get lower interest rates? But when George Bush raised taxes to cut -the deficit, he was just deferring to the miserly budget-balancing orthodoxy -of Republican bankers, right?
But Bush and Reagan did not cut the deficits. The deficit was larger when each of them left office than when they entered.
I am not arguing that Dems didn't push through some decent policies under both Reagan and Bush- and don't play a game that Bush wanted the 1989 tax deal. Ron Dellums and left Dems fought and blocked the first version of the deal, which was much less progressive, in order to force through the final deal.
So let's be straight- the final 1989 tax bill was more progressive than what Bush initially proposed, while the 1993 deal was basically what Clinton asked for, if anything slightly more conservative than his initial request. As I've noted before, when people discuss Presidential results without reference to the Congressional context, they are engaging in an incredibly reductionist measure of the relative progressiveness of various Presidents.
But the fundamental point is not merely fiscal policy but an active negotiation between President and Fed Chairman - essentially the story told by Woodward in THE AGENDA - to trade fiscal policy for lower unemployment. I don't know if Woodward's story is true or accurate, but there is no history of any equivalent deal between Reagan or Bush with the Fed Chairman. Clinton, by whatever means, managed to get the Fed to keep interest rates low enough to pump up unemployment (or so it is alleged that the Fed was able to do), something Reagan and Bush failed to accomplish in their relations with the Fed.
Why shouldn't Clinton get credit for that?
-- Nathan Newman