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I admit to being partisan on this issue because I'm a fiscal conservative, the facts are so clear on this matter, and the Republican hypocrisy is disturbing. A Democratic President and Republican Congress should be the best arrangement for dealing with debt, but unfortunately one side seems to think we have arrived at the holy grail of tax policy and nothing can be raised to create a balanced approach to the problem. They even want to cut taxes again, which is ridiculously irresponsible.


I am glad you admit to being partisan. You will notice that I don't tout Bush or Reagan...ever. In fact, you will notice that I haven't given any indication that I approve of Bush's policies and that I actively disapproved of them. I've done that multiple times on this thread and yet his name is thrown at me as if to prove something.

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Again, what exactly was Clinton supposed to do to stop the market speculation on Wall Street known afterward as the "dotcom bubble" while being impeached for having an affair.


This is the part that most people have a problem with. I prefer inaction when it comes to government. When you say "what was Clinton supposed to do", it's what I want him to NOT do. Clinton encouraged a loose money policy. Though he only requested specific action from the fed a few times, Greenspan's loose money policy was very much in line with his own. He also increased money supply through the treasury. His policies made money cheap. Cheap money finds its way to the investment market which contributed to the inflation of the bubble.

Now, before you go off on me for changing my tune, please go back and read what I wrote about Clinton. I said (and I'm not even looking) "if you give Clinton credit for the boom, you have to blame him for the bust" (paraphrased). I also stated that the bubble was going to happen anyway, that it was cyclical, it's that his policies increased the amplitude of the cycle.

It's similar to the Bush situation, it cannot be denied that he inherited a big ole bag of steaming economic crap. He also inherited an international situation that was more challenging that almost any other president in history. 9/11 happened only 8 months into his presidency. It was planned during Clinton's tenure. And given the liberal tendency to blame the past president, if you blame Bush for Obama economic and foreign policy situation, then you have to blame Clinton for the one that Bush received. That is, if you want to maintain some level of intellectual honesty. The economic policies of Bush/Congress/Fed encouraged the credit/housing bubble through RE speculation. Easy money finds it's way into investments and inflates the investment beyond reasonable expected value. And then it implodes.

But back to the myth of the Clinton surplus. During the years that there was a claim that there was a budget surplus, the national debt went up. In one of the years that he claimed a surplus, the national debt went from $4.3T to $5.6T. You don't increase your debt by $1.3T when you have a budget surplus.

When the surplus was claimed, it excluded intergovernmental holdings. They claimed loans from social security as revenue on budget reports. That's where the "surplus" came from...it was an accounting trick. And this accounting trick created a false sense of security in the investment community that also helped to inflate the bubble. In other words, you claiming it is nonsense, doesn't make it so.

Think of this in the corporate realm. A corporation has a subsidiary. It shows the revenues and assets of the subsidiary on its balance sheet. Then the parent corporation takes a loan from the subsidiary and claims that loan as revenue. Thus giving a greater EPS which attracts more investors,thus raising the price of the stock. Do you think that the SEC might have a problem with this? That's what the Clinton administration did.

and finally, cutting taxes is a great idea! It stimulates the economy in multiple ways. It allows money to be invested in private businesses which then pay more taxes. It allows you and I to spend more money on goods and services rather than throwing it into the dead money pit of the US government.

Oh, and Clinton wasn't impeached for having an affair. He was impeached for lying to congress about it. Personally, I could give a crap about it. But it does show that he is a slimebag. If a corporate executive in his 50s had an affair with an intern in her early 20s, everybody would (and should) cry sexual harassment. There was a disproportionate power relationship and he had a responsibility to not exploit it.