This CNN Video is entitled Thompson Talks Immigration but the real whoppers come when Fred talks fiscal policy. Take a listen and then let’s talk.
Fred Thompson mentions cutting taxes and balancing the budget almost in the same sentence. He fails to mention the 1993 tax increase – opposed by all Republicans in the Senate – even though this was one of the two major moves that did lead to fiscal responsibility. The other major move has often been called the “Peace Dividend” where we felt able to sharply reduce defense spending. There is only one candidate running for the GOP Presidential nomination that would once again reduce defense spending. His name is Ron Paul and he tends to be mocked by his colleagues when they are not promising more tax cuts. So it goes in the Spend & Borrow wing that dominates the Republican Party.
5 comments:
Bill Clinton takes credit for Newt Gingrich's Contract With America.
I'd love to see your piece on that.
I'll check back for a link later.
Caveat - I thought it was the Contract ON America. Remind me - which portions of this actually became law?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_with_America
For that matter I don't see any pro-growth measures at all. You have a toothless balanced budget proposal, all kinds of ways of making regulatory action more expensive or impossible, a bunch of new spending on crime, expensive tax credits, all apparently to be funded by cutting welfare for mothers under 18 and not paying for UN peacekeeping. Certainly it is a Right Wing wet dream come to like but it is not in any sense an economic plan. Christ it does not even touch what the Right claims to be our biggest economic threat today, comb through the whole thing and you don't see a peep about 'entitlements'.
It would be one thing to credit the Contract for stuff it set out to do, like Welfare Reform, but crediting it for stuff it didn't even address is a little strange.
PGL: Haha, that was Clinton's silver-tongued spin on Newt's successful strategy on the House in 1994.
You have a point on actual legislation--the Senate majority remained stacked against the House GOP, so gridlock ruled the day.
And the post-Carter economic healing and growth continued! Let's check out those inflation and unemployment trends from 1976- onwards!
OK, enough noodling. You've got some great content on your blog, and I actually find that 1) I agree with Robert Reich on several policies and 2) Bill Clinton was one of the finest Republican presidents in my lifetime!
Er, you left out the $180 BILLION in domestic spending cuts that were part of the 1993 package, and the fact that spending went down as a percentage of GDP almost every year of the Clinton administration.
It is not coincidence that the economy was so healthy due to the lower federal share of spending.
Those of you who are trying to make a case that we can increase taxes, increase spending, and somehow return to the 90s levels of prosperity are misleading the public.
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