long time guy wrote:
4. Balancing the budget didn't help the economy? Curbing inflation while simultaneously maintaining low interest rates didn't help the economy? Reducing Federal Spending didn't help the economy? CLinton also raised generated more revenue for the country by raising taxes. There was a deficit when he took over and a surplus when he left.
The tech boom wasn't related to CLinton policies but the real estate boom was. The subsequent bust had to do with somewhat with his policies but they also had to do with fast and loose way that financiers used money. It also had to do with a Fed that simply believed that it could spend our way out of any problem. That was Alan Greenspan and it is mind boggling why his name never comes up. Bush also promoted fast and loose spending policies coupled with lower taxes and that had much more of a disastrous effect on the economy than anything Clinton did.
The conventional view of the Clinton economy, which seems to be more or less what you're arguing here, is that Clinton found a way to keep unemployment low while miraculously also maintaining low inflation, defying the expectations of economists. Such a dynamic presumably led to several years of solid economic growth and a new era of prosperity--including an unprecedented budget surplus--for the country.
The problem with this view is that it overwhelmingly favors the interests of the wealthy and upper middle classes, who disproportionately benefited from the economic gains of the Clinton years.
It is important to understand that one of the sources of the Clinton economic "miracle" was consistently low inflation. But the low inflation of the 1990s did not result from the expertise of Robert Rubin or Alan Greenspan; rather, it was--as Greenspan acknowledged--an effect of the "traumatized" workforce--that is, pervasive job insecurity--created by globalization and free trade. Because workers recognized their disposability within a global economic context (emphasized by the implementation of NAFTA U.S. entry into the WTO, neoliberal domination of the NLRB, and the mass offshoring of domestic jobs), labor power was undermined, paradoxically limiting upward pressure on wages despite an 8-year unemployment rate averaging less than 5%. The Clintonian miracle of low inflation-low unemployment was thus problematic for ordinary Americans, who often experienced widespread dislocation, anxiety, and wages that, if they did increase, lagged far behind overall gains in productivity.
Partially resulting from the Clintonian embrace of corporate globalization and capital fluidity, a far-reaching surge in investment took place in the 1990s. Such widespread investment, combined with a decidedly anti-labor political and economic environment--converged to produce a record-high price-earnings ration of about 44 in the late 90s. This massive speculative bubble led to increases in consumption and spikes in government receipts at the federal and state levels. Since the increase in consumption was driven by rising individual wealth derived from stock ownership, most of the bubble's financial gains and consumption benefits were enjoyed almost exclusively by the affluent. Despite generating a budget surplus, Clinton refused to pursue a stimulus program that would have had significant redistributive potential. Thus, the surplus, while widely praised by deficit hawks and neoliberal pundits, had no impact on the most vulnerable members of society. Nevertheless, Clinton did endorse the move toward a higher minimum wage (spearheaded by Congressional liberals) and state governments often used increased revenue to pursue infrastructure improvement projects. Both of these developments, along with the eventual trickle-down effect of the bubble, led to wage gains for many Americans, although those with a college degree experienced the greatest salary increases and the poorly educated continued to struggle.
Overall, economic inequality--which began to surge under Reagan--intensified under Clinton. Further, the underlying conditions that led to the Clinton economic miracle were either undesirable--job insecurity, declining labor power, job relocation--or unsustainable, as in the case of the stock market bubble. Finally, Clinton's assault on the welfare state exposed marginalized populations to new levels of poverty, a nightmarish development that was not recognized until the post-9/11 recession.
Despite these issues, it is not surprising that many academics, media workers and other members of the professional-managerial class are nostalgic for the Clinton economy. After all, their stock portfolios improved and their wages typically rose during this time. The problem, however, is that they have conflated their economic gains with the broader population, whose fortunes increased only modestly, stagnated, or declined under Clinton's leadership.
It definitely wasn't example of of a "a rising tide lifts all boats" but compared to what we have witnessed the last 10-15 years it was impressive. Low wages versus no wages. I don't agree that stimulus packages were the answer either. We have an economy now where a number of people have dropped out of the workforce. The Free Trade agreements that are bemoaned haven't been adjusted either since he left office. Yes he didn't curb inequality but the middle class did benefit from CLinton's presidency.
As far as the assault on welfare it could be looked at in a few ways. Generational welfare was a huge problem. You had millions and millions of people that knew nothing but govt assistance programs. That was never the intent. Welfare was supposed to be a temporary fix and instead it became permanent states of dependance. I understand that it cut off a number of people and that was unfortunate but Roosevelt never intended for it to be permanent when he started the program.
As far as Real Estate goes the collapse of the market more to do with Bush and Greenspan than it did Clinton.
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dude 
Yeah, no kidding.
