All The Closet Freeper/Trolls Trying To Blame Bill Clinton for the Current Economy

[Median Democrat]

REAL household median income grew under Bill, and fell under George Bush. Notice the word "real," which means adjusted for inflation, and the word "median," which means a family right in the middle of the income brackets, rather than an average.

<>

Also, Bill has not been President since 2000. To the extent that more regulation was needed, you would think that the Enron crisis in 2003 should have put Republicans on notice that they might want to re-consider their stance against regulation. Indeed, what happened to the cries for the need for regulation that followed the Enron Crisis?

Sorry, but this screwed up economy is entirely the fault of the Republicans. You would think that the 2003 Enron crisis would have given them a clue, but no. They need a full fledged depression to discover the need for regulation.

[kirby]

1. Clinton bears some blame too...

He helped deregulation which spur the dot com bubble. Of course Greenspan was a major contributor and the Repub Congress he had to work with.

This is why i think it would be smart NOT to have Clinton our their talking the economy on Obamas behalf.

[Median Democrat]

2. Again, Enron in 2003 Should Have Been A Clue

If you make a mistake, you learn from it, and the Enron collapse should have given the Republican ruling majority a clue. What did Bill Clinton really do, except NOT veto a Phil Gramm bill? Perhaps that was a mistake, but in 2003, the downside of deregulation were pretty apparent.

[jljamison]

9. well sure but

Think about the politics of it. If Clinton were to push for _increased_ regulation, he would have faced the following headwinds
- a booming economy
- split congress
- going against the stated position of Alan Greenspan, who was frankly deified.

There is just no way that would have happened. Besides that, the WH was too busy producing records to congress regarding the travel office, christmas card lists, whitewater, etc, and the congress was too busy holding hearings and investigating the same. ok thats a cheap shot, but still there's no way Clinton pushes successfully for more regulation period.

But this is definitely a shared blame situation. Mostly the blame lies with the companies that acted unethically. The more complex you make investment instruments, risk is still there. And you don't risk money you simply can't lose. But the democrats in congress are coin operated just like the republicans...

[yardwork]

14. True, but the OP's point is that over the past eight years, the Republicans should have kept an eye

on things. Instead, they just recklessly drove the economy off the cliff. Especially after Enron and the others went crash boom, it should have been obvious that things needed correcting. In fact, it was obvious to most of us.

It's like blaming George Washington for the fact that we don't have national healthcare. Yeah, it's true that Washington didn't provide national healthcare. But we've had the chance to fix it since then, and haven't.

[Median Democrat]

15. Thank You! I Don't Mind Government Being Creative, But If It Doesn't Work Fix It

When we started going into deficit, Bush and the GOP should have rescinded the tax cuts, but they didn't. I don't expect any President to be perfect, but the key is not to ignore reality in favor of idealogy, paerticularly when the idealogy is proven completely wrong. Economists celebrate free trade. Fine, lets try it out, but as problems arise, fix them, don't ignore them.

[yardwork]

16. Free trade means not bailing out failing companies.

It's "free trade" for us, government bailouts for them.

[NYC_SKP]

3. Mean versus Median, Statistics 101.

In case anyone is unclear,

Mean is the average; add up all the incomes and divide the sum by the number of people (or families)

Median is the middle person in a set; line up all the incomes from low to high, and find the middle income. Out of 101 people, median would be #51

The rich could get much richer and the poor could get much poorer (and greater in number) and the MEAN might not change, or it could even go higher!

The median, under the same circumstances, would fall quite noticeable.

There will be a quiz.

[Median Democrat]

4. Exactly, Me and Kobe Bryant Have An Average Income of $10 million

The median figure is a much more accurate guage of how families are doing.

[Sebastian Doyle]

5. I'm no Freeper or Troll, but facts are facts

Clinton could have killed NAFTA, but he didn't. He shouldn't have killed Glass Steigel, but he did. Those two things, and all that resulted from them, play a big part in why things are so fucked up right now. Maybe not in terms of willfull irresponsible negligence like that of the Bush Crime Family, still the fact is that Clinton did away with some things that could have protected this country from those fucking bastards.

Pretty much EVERYTHING needs to be rolled back to where it was before 1980, then maybe we can get the fuck out of this mess.

[Median Democrat]

11. Hey, Most People's Median Income Increased Over Bill's Two Terms

So, I prefer Bill to George.

[ibegurpard]

6. Is he to blame?

I don't know.
He also signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which allowed the media consolidation which we are dealing with today.
The man was WRONG on these issues. One reason I wasn't trusting of Hillary as a candidate.

[Median Democrat]

12. You ignore the composition of the FCC

All the laws in the world don't mean squat if the FCC is filled with pro-industry types. Look at the EPA under Bush. Are you suggesting that we repeal environmental laws due to Bush's sorry record, or that we appoint regulatory officials that actually enforce the laws.

[Orsino]

7. Surely you're not crediting a Republican Congress with incresing prosperity?

No, Clinton shares some blame for things that went wrong, particularly when he went along with the GOP.

[Median Democrat]

10. What exactly went wrong then? The 1990s Were Great,

As for now, Bush has had 8 freakin years to fix any of Bill's so-called mistakes.

[Orsino]

17. The '90s set the stage for the abuses and wealth disparity of today...

...and the very rich gobbled up most of the great.

[ChimpersMcSmirkers]

8. Boy, we really had it bad back then..

[opihimoimoi]

13. Clinton to Blame??? But the Pubs had 8 friggen years to FIX it

need I say more?

[and-justice-for-all]

18. Because they are delusional, uneducated morans...

They want their pathetic prez to be something he is not. He is a scar on the face of this country and he will NOT get the legacy he wants.