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Bill Clinton forgets his record (& accomplishments) when comparing challenges he faced in 1990s to those Obama faces today

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Former President Bill Clinton, the AP’s Andrew DeMillo reports, “on Saturday offered a vigorous defense of President Barack Obama against what he called the same anti-government stances he faced during his campaign and two terms in office“:

“Underlying those challenges is the same old debate about whether government is the problem or whether we need smart government and a changing economy working together to create the opportunities of tomorrow,” Clinton told the crowd, which was flooded with old campaign signs for him or his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who lost to Obama in 2008’s Democratic nominating contest.

. . . .

“There’s not a single example on our planet, not one, where an anti-government strategy has produced a vibrant economy with strong and broad-based growth and prosperity,” Clinton said.

Yeah, but Mr. Clinton, as I recall, you compromised with those anti-government forces in the 104th and 105th Congresses. As a result, growth in government slowed as the economy prospered.  The federal government consumed a far smaller percentage of the GDP than it does today.  Indeed, federal spending in the 1990a, as a percentage of GDP, was slightly lower than it was in the 1970s.

And what, pray tell, fell between the 1990s and the 1970s.

UPDATE:  Over at Powerline, Steven Hayward critiques historian Sean Wilentz’s recent article in The New Republic, “20 Years Later: How Bill Clinton Saved Liberalism from Itself”. Here, he addresses a point similar to the one I make above:

Wilentz left unsaid one key part of Clinton’s success that Podhoretz noted prominently: Clinton’s adaptation to the Republican landslide of 1994, which was a direct rebuke to Clinton’s McGovernite ways his first two years in office.  Wilentz’s silence on Obama’s lack of adaptation to the 2010 election result is telling.

Comments

  1. “There’s not a single example on our planet, not one, where an anti-government strategy has produced a vibrant economy with strong and broad-based growth and prosperity,” Clinton said.

    Clinton remains the champion weasel of the left.

    “Anti-government strategy” is anarchy based.

    No conservative I have ever known was “anti-government.” But that is all the liberals have in response to controlling the size and scope of massive, lumbering, money-wasting behemoth government.

    If you cut transportation funds, you automatically favor decaying and failing bridges. Ask Obama.

    If you cut government by 10%, you want to eliminate the fire department, schools and medical help for the aged and critically infirm.

    Clinton is just a slicker demagogue than Obama. Clinton serves his BS up with cotton dust prose and honey suckle oratory. Obama spits broken glass.

  2. And if Clinton meant “small-government strategy” (instead of anti), then he lies: there are many historical cases where the small-government strategy has produced a vibrant economy with broad-based prosperity.

    In fact, it’s pretty much an historical law. Countries that move in a direction of personal responsibility and small government with sound money, will do better over time; those that do the opposite, will do worse over time. Once more, Bill Clinton lies to the American people.

    “Underlying those challenges is the same old debate about whether [Big] government is the problem…”

    It is. “The science is settled.”

  3. Well something called the internet happened…probably had more to do with the Economic success of the 90s than anything the two parties in power did.

    I think its more amusing that people had 2008 Hillary signs there, oh it feels so good to have been right all along.

  4. the internet happened…probably had more to do with the Economic success of the 90s than anything the two parties in power did

    So it just ‘happened’? Or perhaps any country could have done it? But you have a valid point, that it wasn’t caused by anything the two parties did *in the 90s*, except that (compared with today) they managed to hold themselves back, i.e., not screw it up / not suck the life out of the economy. That was important.

    Mr. Clinton, as I recall, you compromised with those anti-government forces in the 104th and 105th Congresses. As a result, growth in government slowed as the economy prospered.

    Perhaps that is the real-world meaning of Clinton’s phrase, “smart government”. The smart government is the smaller one, the one which grows itself the least.

    Now for this morning’s Meta Irony Alert: Greece due to unveil plan to sack state workers. It’s a big deal because the Greek constitution had guaranteed the workers jobs for life, and as recently as a couple years ago, they still enjoyed 14 (!) months’ pay per year. Look where that road ends. I offer the Greeks’ disaster as an example of “dumb government”.