Under Clinton government spending growth slowed down that's why I say I give him some credit (even though I think the congress had more to do with it). But even considered in isolation that hardly means "the era of big government is over" was a remotely truthful or accurate statement. While spending growth slowed it continued, and the growth in taxes was faster than GDP growth. Most of all Clinton increased regulation. 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.
On the other hand, under Bush government exploded. Record deficits.
That isn't a defense of Clinton, or a refutation of my arguments about him.
Regulations can create growth and jobs.
They almost always do, you have to pay the regulators... But usually the net jobs produced is 0 or negative. The job cost can be negligible and sometimes other benefits are great. I certainly wouldn't argue that we should try to do without government regulations, but such regulations are an increase in the size of the government.
The government, Rep or Dem, spends 24/7 creating biases... it's just a matter of which side you are on. Several industries have done very well under Bush, thank you.
Bush has also added new regulations, but at least he has slowed down the process. Bush is far from perfect here, but at least he has a better record here than he has on government spending. Its sort of the reverse with Clinton. He was from my perfect IMO on spending but he had a much better record on spending than he did on taxes or regulations.
A combination of Clinton's/Gingrich's control of spending and Bush's tax policy would be ok. Neither one of them was that good in terms of reigning in regulations but Clinton was worse. I can't think of any recent president that has really gotten control of the regulatory state, Bush is probably better than average but the average is so bad that "better than average" doesn't mean much.
Tim |
