The centrist Clinton administration

[hfojvt]

This may be preaching to the choir, but there seem to be some on DU who suggest that my memory is faulty, that President Clinton did lots of things to help the poor and working classes. So I did some spelunking in the archives of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). Most of their archives are devoted to debunking various talking points coming from the Republican Congress. They did mention Clinton a few times (and yes Clinton should get some credit for his vetoes and veto threats).

(However, Clinton came in with a Democratic Congress, that got lost partly because the RNC campaigned against his wife.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=3460552#3461034

"In their postmortems on the elections, many pollsters and analysts tagged the First Lady's health-care plan as a major factor in turning voters against the President and his party. Stanley Greenberg, the White House pollster, found that health care, more than anything else, drove independent voters away.")

Anyway, here are some of the things the CBPP mentions

http://www.cbpp.org/8-5-99bud.htm

"The (Clinton) Administration's proposal is essentially a centrist to moderately conservative one that should not be described as a "big government" plan with large amounts of new spending."

"Centrist to moderately conservative". Not progressive. Not liberal. Even in a booming economy and without the need to worry about re-election. "Centrist to moderately conservative".

http://www.cbpp.org/7-12-99bud.htm

The Clinton administration over-stated the "surplus" which set the stage for Bush/Republican tax cuts.

"The new CBO projections show that under current law, the federal government will begin running surpluses in the non-Social Security budget in fiscal year 2000 and run cumulative non-Social Security surpluses of $996 billion over the next 10 years. But these projections, like those OMB issued several days earlier, assume that total expenditures for appropriated programs — which include the vast bulk of defense expenditures — will remain within the austere and politically unrealistic "caps" the 1997 budget law set on appropriated programs."

The OMB, isn't that Clinton's OMB? Remember the 2000 campaign? The surplus was so big that Bush was gonna use $1 as a tax cut, $1 for prescription drugs, $1 to shore up social security and $1 to pay down the debt. A surplus that was over-stated by the Clinton administration.

http://www.cbpp.org/clinttax.htm

"Analyses by the Treasury Department indicate that when fully in effect, the Clinton plan would give the 20 percent of Americans with the highest incomes about the same amount in tax cuts as the bottom 60 percent combined. This is an unusual characteristic for a tax plan proposed by a Democratic President. "

"The Clinton plan would provide the child credit to at least 10 million fewer children than would receive it under the House Democratic tax bill, offered by Rep. Charles Rangel. "

"The Clinton plan would provide the child credit to several million fewer children in near-poor working families than would be the case under the Senate Democratic tax plan that Senator Tom Daschle offered last week."

"Since the Treasury tables do not reflect the effects of the estate tax cuts the Administration is proposing — and the estate tax cuts affect only the heirs of the wealthiest two percent of people who die — the tables significantly understate the degree to which high-income households benefit from the plans."

The Clinton administration proposed estate tax cuts? Something that would benefit the wealthiest 2%. How very progressive of him.

Although she offended me by running for the Senate in my mom's home state, a state she had never lived in, my primary reason for opposing Hillary's nomination is Bill Clinton. The era of Big Dawg triangulating needs to be over.

[DJ13]

1. Ever notice that posts that show the Clintons acting like Republicans

.......rarely get replies by the Clinton supporters?

Maybe they actually want another Republican President, so long as their candidate labels herself a Democrat?

[hfojvt]

3. it's not DU, it's DMe.

my posts traditionally hardly get any replies. I have made too many enemies at DU by being a disagreeable conservative a$$hat. Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate. Maybe I am on a whole bunch of ignore lists.

Plus, a long post like this tends to sink off of the first page while a few readers digest it.

[hfojvt]

2. let's just kick this up next to the Hillary hate thread

This is not about hatred of President Clinton or Senator Clinton. It is about hatred of "centrist to moderately conservative" policies coming from the Democratic party leadership.

CBPP is the one calling Clinton a centrist, or moderately conservative. They also show that his proposals are to the right of both Rangel and even the red-state moderate Daschle.

[bryant69]

4. Well I am a centrist so I suppose I'm ok with this

Not everybody at DU has to be a leftist. I am an Edwards supporter, but I could live with Clinton being the President.

Bush is an extreme rightest, and the credible Republican Candidates are nearly as bad or worse than he is.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[hfojvt]

6. it is centrist rhetoric which concedes half the battle to the extreme right

Instead of fighting they try to meet in the "middle". A middle which has already moved to the right and only gets moved further to the right when Democrats start promoting rightwing talking points.

DU certainly has a share who are economically conservative. Considering they are well over the median income, Marx would approve. They are voting their pocketbook.

[bryant69]

9. I'm an anti-marxist as well.

I suppose if you ever get close to being to implement your political/economic views we will find ourselves on different sides of the fence.

Bryant

[hfojvt]

12. Did I say anything pro-marxist?

Except for his theory that people vote, and believe, what it is in their economic self-interest to believe.

We might be on opposite sides if you support the Prison Industrial Complex

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/41

or support tax cuts for the wealthy

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/55

or support various Lieberman-esque compromises

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/19

[wuushew]

15. Are you seriously worried about the U.S. going Marxist?

We are so far to the right of most other countries it is a joke.

Do you think that Europe is too far to the left?

[hfojvt]

19. it would if Kucinich was elected President

and if all the Congressional Democrats acted like Kucinich :scared:

Say hello to the dicatorship of the proletariat. :sarcasm:

According to the RWNM, even the Clintons are closet Marxists. And so is Mike Huckabee.

[TahitiNut]

5. Clinton-era policies were to the right of Eisenhower Republicans.

Not a shred of doubt about that at all. None.

[hfojvt]

7. not every voter or DUer is old enough to know that.

The one bothered by Clinton hate, for example, is under 20, and thus cannot remember even Carter, a conservative southern Democrat, much less Humphrey, Mondale, Jackson. LBJ, or McGovern. Clinton is all they know, and according to the RWNM he's "liberal, liberal, liberal".

I used to teach economics in 1989-90 and at first expected students to know about Reagan and Reaganomic rhetoric because it was such recent, if not current history. Then I realized they were only 10 when he first ran for office and probably neither paying attention, nor having much understanding.

I cannot talk though. When I was 18 I was such a maroon, that I voted for Reagan and against McGovern (for Senate). What a fool I was.

[Richard Steele]

13. Not a shred of doubt about it. nm

[paulk]

29. if you don't have a "shred of doubt" about it

then you should have no problem backing it up with some real policy examples?

I'll start, ok?

abortion -

Eisenhower - illegal

Clinton - legal

[TahitiNut]

32. Here ... I'll draw you a picture (or two) ...

These should give a good idea about economic policy. You want to talk about social policy like abortion? Then try some intellecutal honesty and acknowledge that abortion was disallowed (state's rights) during the FDR New Deal era, too. But Brown v. Board of Education was decided during Eisenhower's Presidency - by an Ike Chief Justice (Earl Warren) and ENFORCED by Ike. The conservatives were livid for decades and wanted Earl Warren IMPEACHED - if not worse.

[hfojvt]

33. that is an accomplishment of Clinton somehow?

I am pretty sure this happened in the 1990s, although I can't immediately find stats comparing 1993 to 2001.

"But access to abortion has been severely eroded. The most recent survey found that 87% of all U.S. counties have no identifiable abortion provider. In non-metropolitan areas, the figure rises to 97%."

http://www.prochoice.org/about_abortion/access/index.html

Since the reference is from 2000, this seems to have been true during the Clinton administration "access to abortion has been severely eroded".

But I would not deny that Clintons are progressive on social issues or identity politics. It is on the economy where they turn to the right and start sounding like Republicans. "The era of Big Government is over". Eisenhower didn't say that. Clinton did. Eisenhower gave a speech warning about the military industrial complex.

[TahitiNut]

35. On top of which it was Ike's appointees on SCOTUS who found for Roe v. Wade.

So ... if we're gonna talk about abortion as a FEDERAL issue - and a right - it was due to Eisenhower's appointees that it even happened. (People gotta learn their history.)

In fact, it was a JFK appointee (Byron "Whizzer" White) who OPPOSED the decision of the court. Fancy that.

[paulk]

38. I didn't say it was

but it is certainly a "policy" difference.

Look - the idea that Clinton was to the right of Eisenhower is absurd. I don't see how anyone can even argue the point.

Clinton raised taxes! How is that a turn to right after the Reagan/Bush years? You have to view his admin. in the context of the times. If I had to choose between Eisenhower and Clinton as President, I wouldn't choose Eisenhower. I doubt many Democrats would.

[hfojvt]

39. Reagan and Bush also raised taxes

and the quotes in my OP show Clinton proposing tax cuts, and an unusual tax cut for a Democrat. One that gave a good share of its benefits to the top 20%, and also proposed a tax cut that was to the right of Senate Democrats.

It is not a turn to the right from Reagan, it is a turn to the right from previous Democratic leaders such as Tip, Carter, Mondale, Humphrey, Jackson and Dukakis.

I wouldn't have brought Ike into this, but I don't think Clinton can be defended on abortion when he certainly made no advances in that area.

[paulk]

41. you can't begin to compare the tax increases under

Reagan and Bush to Clinton rescinding the Reagan era tax cuts for the wealthy.


Also - you can't compare Clinton to those other Dems without the context of the times they governed in. Or didn't govern, as was the case with Mondale, Dukakis, Humphrey, and Jackson. Actually, I don't know what Jackson you're referring to. Those people all lost their elections - maybe because they didn't "turn to the right"?

I mean - what is the point of all this? Clinton was a centrist. Clinton won. Twice.

Horrible, horrible, horrible.

[hfojvt]

42. What is the point of all this?

Clinton won twice. However the Democratic party lost. We lost in 1994, in 1996, in 1998, and in 2000 when it comes to Congressional races. We lost our Congressional majority and did not get it back until 2006. Even that seems to be an empty gain, and I fear that we will lose it again with Clinton heading our ticket. We won in 2006 because discouraged Republicans did not bother to vote, especially in places like Kansas. They will be more likely to vote in a Presidential race, but nothing will unite and motivate them like Hillary on the ticket.

Many progressives feel that the party has been losing because it has not been true to its working class roots and principles. That given a "choice" between a Republican who is tough on terror and tough on crime and gonna balance the budget and gonna cut taxes and a Me2 Democrat who promises "Me too, I will do that too." That too much of the public either does not see a meaningful distinction or prefers the original to the copy.

Not only that, because Clinton was a centrist, the working class lost. The poor lost. Clinton hardly rescinded the Reagan tax cuts. Reagan reduced the top rate from 70% to 28%. Clinton raised the top rate to 39.6% from 31%. Then he gave a bunch of it back in 1997 as shown in my OP, and also because his administration over-stated the surplus, he set the stage for the Bush tax cuts. Victories for Clinton did not translate into victories for the people. You don't win anything when you "fight" conservatism by becoming more conservative.

[paulk]

43. sigh....

"Many progressives feel that the party has been losing because it has not been true to its working class roots and principles. That given a "choice" between a Republican who is tough on terror and tough on crime and gonna balance the budget and gonna cut taxes and a Me2 Democrat who promises "Me too, I will do that too." That too much of the public either does not see a meaningful distinction or prefers the original to the copy."

--------------

this is a specious argument.

Politicians respond to the public - the public had been moving to the right. Witness Reagan/Bush. Their elections didn't happen in a vaccuum. The DLC was a reaction to this. A reaction that worked at the time. The shift in the Congress was far more a product of the old conservative Democratic south becoming the conservative Republican south than anything Bill Clinton did. If anything the loss of Congress was a backlash of Clinton's attempts at liberal policies in his first two years. The rescinded Reagan era tax cuts, passed without a single Republican vote cost us seats. Clinton's attempts to let gays serve in the military provoked a huge negative reaction, and the compromise "don't ask, don't tell" was disliked by both sides of the argument. Hillary's attempt at universal health coverage hurt the party. The nation was not ready for these things, and punished the Democratic accordingly.

------------------

You fail to point out in your cherrypicking of the OOCP report that the budget offered by the Republicans was five times worse in the catogories you castigate Clinton for.


-----------------------

I fail to see how Clinton on the ticket will unite the Republicans any more than the last election did, where record numbers turned out. All signs and polls point to a demoralized Republican Party for this next election. The Republicans are losing voters, Democrats are gaining. In Colorado the Republican registration advantage has gone from 170k to 130k in just two years. Party preference has gone from a 50-50 tie in 2004 to a 15 point Democratic advantage nationwide.


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Back up your "the poor lost" under Clinton with numbers. Poverty rates declined under Clinton.

[bvar22]

34. A case could be made that Clinton policies were to the RIGHT of Nixon.

The Democratic Party is a BIG TENT, but there is NO ROOM for those
who advance the agenda of THE RICH (Corporate Owners) at the EXPENSE of LABOR and the POOR.

[TahitiNut]

36. Indeed.

[paulk]

8. considering that the Republicans controlled Congress for the

last six years - perhaps that had something to do with the Clinton administration not being as liberal as you'd like.

They tried to pass liberal legislation in the first two years and the public rewarded them by electing Republicans.

Perhaps the "centrism" was a result of compromise with the Republican controlled legislature? I know there a few who would prefer that nothing whatsoever get accomplished in the name of partisanship - the Clinton's seem to have decided that half a loaf was better than none.


---------------------------


Since I support HRC, I'm actually pleased that you seem to think running against Bill Clinton is some kind of viable political strategy. Go for it!

[hfojvt]

10. I think I answered that - it was his "leadership" that lost Congress for us.

He was not that liberal in his first two years either. He did not campaign as a liberal. All I remember hearing is about economic growth. And all of his centrism and money-raising and DLC candidates for Congress never managed to recapture Congress.

Something can get done, but I am not sure how it helps the progressive movement if the President is to the right of Congressional Democrats in the Senate and in the House.

You think people who oppose Hillary have a choice? Bill is already in this campaign. So why not a little truth against the media myth of Clinton liberalism?

[paulk]

25. his leadership on liberal issues, yes.

issues that the public was not ready for or in agreement with. Going against the Reagan tax cuts cost quite a few Democrats their seats - and yet that action had a lot to do with the booming economy of the nineties. Talk about political courage - not just on the part of the Clinton's, but on the part of elected Democrats in general!

The loss of the Congress also had a lot to do with the shift of the old south from Democratic to Republican. Just as the current success of the Democratic Party in the northeast is a reflection of the shift from moderate Republicanism to Democratic in those areas, as the national Republican Party moves ever farther to the right.


No candidate with any real hope of winning a general election campaigns as a liberal. I remind you that this country has put a Republican in the White House 20 of the last 28 years. Liberalism is apparently not a concept embraced by the majority of the voting public.

The "media myth of Clinton's liberalism" is coming mostly from the right in their attempts to portray HRC as the 2nd coming of Chairman Mao.

Trying to paint the Clinton's as moderates rather than liberals will most likely help, not hurt them.

[hfojvt]

27. I might remind you that Gore got more votes than Bush

and his acceptance speech was liberal IMO.

It might help to tell the truth about their record in the general election, but it's not gonna play well in progressivetown.

[paulk]

31. OTOH, Gore helped found the DLC

it gets pretty hard to tell the players apart when they keep changing their uniforms.

[Leopolds Ghost]

18. How is eliminating half of all welfare & public housing instead of all of it "half a loaf" for you?

I guess you'd prefer we eliminate all of it (which was the stated intention of Clinton's plan).

[paulk]

26. that is nonsense,

but par for the course on your part.

[no name no slogan]

11. Clinton's economic policies were Eisenhower Republican

The recall of Taft-Hawley in 1999, the Telecomm Act in 1996, "Welfare Reform", NAFTA,... these were actions that would fit right in with what Nixon and Eisenhower did.

I take that back-- Nixon was actually more liberal than Bill Clinton in many ways.

[hfojvt]

14. he did veto two welfare "reform" bills

but since he ran on a campaign of welfare reform, he finally signed one that was still pretty bad.

Nixon had to deal with Tip and a far more leftist Congress and powerful AFL-CIO, the big meanies.

But that still didn't mean that Clinton had to "fight" Republicans by "out-Republicaning" them.

Is that a word? out-Republicaning?

[no name no slogan]

16. Yeah, he caved without much of a fight, unfortunately.

I work in social services, so I see the "benefits" of welfare "reform" on a daily basis. Yes, people get off cash assistance, but they move into sub-poverty-wage jobs, and then get other forms of aid, like subsidized medical care, food stamps, etc.

His support of "reform" in the financial services industry also led us into the mess we had with Wall Street and the current subprime mortgage fiasco.

IIRC Tip didn't become Speaker until after 1976, though-- I think it was Carl Albert who was Speaker during most of Nixon's tenure...

[hfojvt]

22. Karl Albert? Karl?

then the US was Marxist. My bad on that, I was only 12 when Nixon resigned. I thought Tip was Speaker forever, going back to at least 1947. I remember him as being really old, like over 50 or something.

[TahitiNut]

37. Rayburn - McCormack - Albert - O'Neill

:shrug: During my lifetime.

[hfojvt]

40. you are old, father William

:hide:

Probably those were speakers during my lifetime too, but there's a gap in my political memory from seeing RFK in 1968 and the McGovern campaign in 1972.

[Leopolds Ghost]

20. Nixon SUPPORTED WELFARE, public housing and a living wage. Clinton does not.

[ieoeja]

17. K&R. n/t

[NNN0LHI]

21. The country generally has swung right as far as I can tell

I want the candidate that is as far to the left as possible ... but still able to win the election.

Winning the election is important as anything else.

Then we can slowly begin to swing things back left again. We can right this ship. Just not overnight.

Don

[hfojvt]

24. I would argue a couple of points on that

First, that it is DLCers like Clintons who have helped to shift it to the right by adopting rightwing talking points as their own via triangulation.

Second, that the country is not as far to the right as the M$M likes to portray. I cannot find Scher's listing of polls but here is one post from the Liberal Oasis

http://www.liberaloasis.com/2006/10/politicstv_liberalism_and_the.php

"The third installment of my interview by PoliticsTV.com is up, which talks about the need for the Democratic Party to embrace its ideological foundation of liberalism, if it is to consistently win elections with mandates to move our country in a better direction."

We move the country to the left by making a convincing case for our principles. By articulating a vision, a progressive vision

http://www.liberaloasis.com/2007/01/vision_time.php

"Throughout 2007, if Washington Dems and grassroots citizens alike regularly root specific policy ideas in a compelling vision for America -- in our conversations, letters to the editor, blog posts, talk radio calls, and TV appearances -- we will build and broaden the Democratic mandate, and set the stage for even bigger, and desperately needed, change in 2008."

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

23. "....moderation in principle is always a vice." - Tom Paine K&R

"Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice." Tom Paine

[MasonJar]

28. Well, I am a Clinton supporter and I am going to reply. Number 1

the reason I often do not reply is because it is useless to constantly have to counter charges against Hillary here on DU, so more often than not once I sense or recognize an anti-Clinton post I just bow out. On the other hand, no one ever seems to recognize here that Obama is right of Hillary. As to Bill Clinton, probably next to Al Gore, the most respected American alive (with the possible exception of President Carter) and a man who has spent his time since he left office working for the people of the world, I resent the continued diminishment of his many contributions to the poor and to the workers of the USA and the world community. Vote for whomever you want, but leave my candidate alone. Number 2 Bill Clinton is trying to help Hillary get elected, as well he should. No one resents Elizabeth Edwards working for John, which is appropriate; no one should. I admire Obama and Edwards and will work diligently to see that they are elected if one of them is chosen by the majority of dems; I expect the same for my preference.

[hfojvt]

30. I am as happy to hear contrary opinions as I am to offer them.

I could be wrong. Present your POV or contrary evidence. But telling me to essentially "shut up about a great and popular man" does not prove me wrong or change my mind. What exactly did he do while he was in office?

As for after his Presidency, he has built a fortune of $50 million by giving speeches and writing books, so he has helped himself (and his wife) at least as much as he has helped a low wage worker such as myself.

His record tells me not to expect much out of a Hillary Presidency either, as does the things she says (or fails to say) and the way she runs her campaign.

Although Obama is disturbingly moderate in his rhetoric, as Time For Change has recently stated very well, I do not believe he is to the right of Hillary
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/70