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Bill Clinton Raised Taxes & Cut Spending & the 1990's Were Fantastic

West Dundee Hawkeye

HR All-American
Sep 28, 2003
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In 1993, the first year of Bill Clinton's term as President, he raised taxes & cut spending. It was one of the biggest hikes in taxes in peace time. The Grover Norquist crowd or the progressive Democrats would have you believe the economy would tank. It didn't. In fact the 1990's were great.

1993 Clinton Budget

Bill Clinton ended up balancing the budget 3 times during his administration. The most that had occurred since Truman & Ike each balanced the budget 3 times. One of the most amazing stats of the Clinton years was the Labor Force Participation Rate. It was at a post WW2 high and has not hit those levels since then.

Labor Force Participation Rate
 
Bill Clinton ended up balancing the budget 3 times during his administration. The most that had occurred since Truman & Ike each balanced the budget 3 times.
DateTotal Public Debt Outstanding
09/30/1993$4,411,488,883,139.38
09/30/1994$4,692,749,910,013.32
09/29/1995$4,973,982,900,709.39
09/30/1996$5,224,810,939,135.73
09/30/1997$5,413,146,011,397.34
09/30/1998$5,526,193,008,897.62
09/30/1999$5,656,270,901,633.43
09/29/2000$5,674,178,209,886.86
09/28/2001$5,807,463,412,200.06

When was the surplus?

Treasury has the data.
One of the most amazing stats of the Clinton years was the Labor Force Participation Rate. It was at a post WW2 high and has not hit those levels since then.
Another way of looking at it is that the post-WW2 trend of increased female labor market participation flatlined during his presidency. Do you credit him with that?

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DateTotal Public Debt Outstanding
09/30/1993$4,411,488,883,139.38
09/30/1994$4,692,749,910,013.32
09/29/1995$4,973,982,900,709.39
09/30/1996$5,224,810,939,135.73
09/30/1997$5,413,146,011,397.34
09/30/1998$5,526,193,008,897.62
09/30/1999$5,656,270,901,633.43
09/29/2000$5,674,178,209,886.86
09/28/2001$5,807,463,412,200.06

When was the surplus?

Treasury has the data.

Another way of looking at it is that the post-WW2 trend of increased female labor market participation flatlined during his presidency. Do you credit him with that?

zEDcoNo.png

xx2GzjD.png
Why are you conflating the deficit with the debt?
 
The internet explosion

Not sure anything will ever top that for job creation. In the future tech advances will equal job eliminations not job creation.

IT departments were non existent to very small for most companies 35 years ago. Now they are huge.
 
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"In the future tech advances will equal job eliminations not job creation."

Luddites have been saying this for literally hundreds of years now.

In 1970, the telecommunications industry employed 421,000 switchboard operators. In the same year, Americans made 9.8 billion long distance calls. Today [2003], the telecommunications industry employs only 78,000 operators. That’s a tremendous 80 percent job loss.
What should Congress have done to save those jobs? Congress could have taken a page from India’s history. In 1924, Mahatma Gandhi attacked machinery, saying it “helps a few to ride on the backs of millions” and warned, “The machine should not make atrophies the limbs of man.” With that kind of support, Indian textile workers were able to politically block the introduction of labor-saving textile machines. As a result, in 1970 India’s textile industry had the level of productivity of ours in the 1920s. Michael Cox, chief economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and author Richard Alms tell the rest of the telecommunications story in their Nov. 17 New York Times article, “The Great Job Machine.” Spectacular technological advances made it possible for the telecommunications industry to cut its manpower needs down to 78,000 to handle not the annual 9.8 billion long distance calls in 1970, but today’s over 98 billion calls. One forgotten beneficiary in today’s job loss demagoguery is the consumer. Long distance calls are a tiny fraction of their cost in 1970. Just since 1984, long distance costs have fallen by 60 percent. Using 1970s technology, to make today’s 98 billion calls would require 4.2 million operators. That’s 3 percent of our labor force. Moreover, a long distance call would cost 40 times more than it does today. Finding cheaper ways to produce goods and services frees up labor to produce other things. If productivity gains aren’t made, where in the world would we find workers to produce all those goods that weren’t even around in the 1970s?
- Walter Williams
 
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I'm not.
The debt increased every year of the Clinton presidency.
How does that happen?
A federal budget deficit.

If you want to derive the annual deficit subtract the prior year's total outstanding debt.
And we come to the point the exercise when we ignore the very important distinction between public debt and gross federal debt (I.e., the lock boxes).
 
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And we come to the point the exercise when we ignore the very important distinction between public debt and gross federal debt (I.e., the lock boxes).
Fiji, put down the shovel.
Johnson went to the 'unified budget' so he could put Social Security surpluses against his guns and butter deficits to make them look less bad.
Whether the government borrows directly from the public today, or promises to take from them in the future (the IOUs Treasury parks in the Social Security lock box), the debt is increasing, and those instruments actually have interest attached.

And honestly, it's a moot point. Social Security went tits up in the 2008 recession and hasn't been offering surpluses since then. That game is over, they'll have to raise the tax - again. The failure of the labor force participation rate overall to rebound has made the Social Security forecasts worsen.
 
We will not discuss job creation stemming from WW2 and FDR...
In 8 years FDRs policies maintained double digit unemployment, even with government make work programs.
Until over 10 million men were put in uniforms and sent to kill and destroy.
Is that a creation record to brag on?
 
Clinton's economy benefited big time with an entire new segment of global technology boom coming online. He should thank his VP for inventing the internet.
 
In 8 years FDRs policies maintained double digit unemployment, even with government make work programs.
Until over 10 million men were put in uniforms and sent to kill and destroy.
Is that a creation record to brag on?
Yep..lFDRs biggest mistake was cutting back government stimulus in 1936-38. He later admitted that. The nation was making some nice gains from Hoover’s economy abd then in his second term, I believe, FDR allowed himself to be talked into backing off the economy ( mostly by Democrats and advisors) and it hurt him badly. He apologized, ran for a third term and was easily re-elected...Once WW2 became an American fact of life, everybody (women, too) went to work and things got better economically.
You should have watched “The Roosevelt’s” on PBS recently...the whole thing was clearly explained...
 
In 1993, the first year of Bill Clinton's term as President, he raised taxes & cut spending. It was one of the biggest hikes in taxes in peace time. The Grover Norquist crowd or the progressive Democrats would have you believe the economy would tank. It didn't. In fact the 1990's were great.

1993 Clinton Budget

Bill Clinton ended up balancing the budget 3 times during his administration. The most that had occurred since Truman & Ike each balanced the budget 3 times. One of the most amazing stats of the Clinton years was the Labor Force Participation Rate. It was at a post WW2 high and has not hit those levels since then.

Labor Force Participation Rate

Now we want to raise taxes and raise spending. History will determine if this was a good thing.
 
It's 30 years later and Republicans are still trying to diminish the Clinton years.
Clinton OWNED Newt and the Republicans......They were mere amateurs in Bill' s presence.......The phuquers have never forgiven Clinton for the good times he gave us......All Clinton did was put some common sense into the Reagan/Republican tax cuts which were too much too quick.....they called it "the highest tax increase ever" because their tax cut was unsound....Clinton put the rates where they needed to be.
Clinton was without a doubt the greatest administrator the Presidency ever experienced in my 72 years....The guy was "butter"!
 
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I guess if the money's good no one cares about the pedophilia.
 
The internet explosion

Not sure anything will ever top that for job creation
. In the future tech advances will equal job eliminations not job creation.

IT departments were non existent to very small for most companies 35 years ago. Now they are huge.
I believe that there is much truth in this statement. ^^ In addition, the later 90's were "once in a lifetime" buoyed by Y2K preparation spending. In all of my career, the mid-to-late 90's were the most "go go" time in a business sense in my life.

Most of that though really wasn't the product of any political policy or person...IMO. Well, I guess unless you give Al Gore credit for inventing the internet. :)

So looking back to that gilded time AND trying to draw firm conclusions based only on political parties, policies, personalities, etc, of the day WITHOUT factoring in the tech boom...is foolhardy IMO.
 
I believe that there is much truth in this statement. ^^ In addition, the later 90's were "once in a lifetime" buoyed by Y2K preparation spending. In all of my career, the mid-to-late 90's were the most "go go" time in a business sense in my life.

Most of that though really wasn't the product of any political policy or person...IMO. Well, I guess unless you give Al Gore credit for inventing the internet. :)

So looking back to that gilded time AND trying to draw firm conclusions based only on political parties, policies, personalities, etc, of the day WITHOUT factoring in the tech boom...is foolhardy IMO.
If my aunt had balls she would be my uncle…. You can’t change the reality of the situation and the times. Sometimes you just have to tip your hat and say, “ well done, sir.” Clinton used Newt whenever he needed to and used him well.
 
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