Reply #77: the contention was a lttle bit different

[hfojvt]

""Welfare Reform" that led to more poor people"

Both NAFTA and welfare 'reform' were predicted to have harmful results, and they have. But conveniently for the Clinton legend, their effects were felt most strongly later, after he was out of office. The fact that we were in the 'longest peacetime economic expansion' blunted the effects of both of those. I do give Clinton some credit for that expansion, but that expansion, like all others, was bound to end at some point. It was when the expansion ended that we really paid the price for those policies.

You are, of course, correct that poverty decreased under Clinton. It's bound to, in any expanding economy. Heck, poverty decreased under Reagan too, from 12.2% in 1982 down to 10.3% in 1989. My point being that the poverty rate follows the economy at least as much as it follows Presidential policies.