But even considered in isolation that hardly means "the era of big government is over" was a remotely truthful or accurate statement.
Maybe he expected the Dems to stay in power, not the free spending neo's.
It wasn't over during his own presidency, it continued. He didn't stop it only to have it revive when Bush became president.
re: Most of all Clinton increased regulation.
Can you be specific
He pushed through a lot of new environmental regulations (a number of them as he was leaving office) and disallowed mining or drilling in a number or areas, he got the minimum wage increased (law not regulation but he pushed for it). He took a more agreesive stance in anti-trust regulation. He proposed a massive increase in government involvement in and regulation of medical care early in his term (fortunately it didn't pass), and later came out with smaller amounts of increased regulation in this area (again some of his proposals were defeated but he did push for them), the vaccine regulations were among the damaging medical regulations that were not defeated. He passed additional workplace and employment regulations, made new federal laws against types of criminal activities (many conservatives do this to with drug laws), and more national anitsmoking laws and regulations. He pushed more requirements on states to have certain laws and regulations (again nothing new for example see the drinking age laws, but Clinton continued to expand the practice) He passed new restrictions on political speech in the name of campaign finance reform (unfortunly Bush's record here might be even worse).
Also see
townhall.com
aynrand.org
heritage.org
Also his spending cuts where in defense, he could cut these because the cold war had ended not because of any brilliant plan of Clintons. Other than these cuts his record on spending really doesn't look so great (although it does beat Bush's, Bush is an easy target to beat).
re: Rather than having the federal government pay for some idea he wanted to push, he just forced others to take on the cost, government expanded, it just expanded in a different way.
That's BS. Expansion = spending; that's the way it works
No it isn't. The government doesn't have to spend much more to pass a bunch of regulations. It forces other people to do things and only overseas the process it can spend less and still control more. Greater regulation equals bigger more intrusive government thus it is government expansion.
e: Bush is far from perfect here, but at least he has a better record here than he has on government spending.
So he's bad on regulation but horrendous on spending? Yet you support him!?! Over Clinton??? Who balanced revenue and spending?
Clinton increased taxes, and was worse on regulation than GW. Also much of Clintons advantage on spending has to do with the fact that Clinton could cut military spending due to the end of the cold war while Bush has had more need to spend money on military and security issues. Most of the rest of Clinton's advantage is do to the fact that Clinton faced a congress that reigned in his spending, while Bush does not (both mostly Republican controlled congresses but Republican congressman seem to have change their mind on spending). Clinton still has an advantage even considering those facts because Bush is so bad on spending but the smaller advantage isn't enough to overwhelm his other disadvantages.
Bush is the most liberal, undisciplined spender of my lifetime, or your lifetime. You know it. You've just got your nose stuck so far up...
1 - I have said again and again that Bush is bad on spending, I think I've even called him horrible, at least "very bad".
2 - I don't know how old you are but I don't think Bush is the biggest spender during my lifetime. LBJ (who was president when I was born) increased spending faster, and while Nixon didn't do to bad in his first term the Nixon/Ford 2nd term also increased spending faster then Bush has.
Tim |
