The Soviet economy was not near collapse, but it couldn't keep up with our commitment to increasing military spending and funding research and development, especially the Strategic Defense Initiative. With military spending at about 25% of Soviet GNP, increasing consumer unrest, and the explosion of the black market, reformers were able to gain control of the government, in an effort to lull the West into complacency, and to resuscitate the economy. However, as glasnost shattered the last bits of Soviet legitimacy, and perestroika proved to be too little, too late, the system began to crumble. Gorbachev mainly survived because of his relative success in dealing with Reagan, but eventually the Politburo sought his removal, and it was the Russian people, most especially the people of Moscow, who supported Yeltsin who brought the system crashing down.
As for President Bush not "finishing" Desert Storm, there was no way to preserve the coalition should we attack Baghdad, and there was no public support for a long term occupation. With Shi'ites and Kurds looking for an opportunity to separate, Iran waiting to take advantage of the situation, and Turkey adamant that it would not put up with a rump Kurdistan, there was little choice but to pull back, and hope that Saddam was toppled in a coup, which seemed a reasonable scenario, and would have likely occurred had not Saddam behaved swiftly and ruthlessly against members of his family and entourage.
The primary fiscal irresponsibility in the '80s was that of the largely Democratic Congress. Economic activity and tax revenues both increased as a result of tax cuts, but the spending cuts were not there. Besides, the impact of the deficits has been overblown, and many of the predicted effects have not materialized, such drying up the capital markets.
The first issue that Clinton addressed was the attempt to get the military to accept gays, and the big project of the first term was the socialization of one seventh of the economy, i.e. health care. Whatever these actions may be, they are not centrist. Republicans have held his feet to the fire on welfare reform and debt reduction.
You are correct that he hired them, which is to his credit. But they were never meant to have the impact on economic policy that they did, rather, they were means to reassure Wall Street, and it is mainly because other initiatives faltered so badly that they became the leading economic lights of the administration.
Since no one has advocated killing the sick and poor, I will ignore that section. No one has proposed nuking the Chinese, but they have deplored giving them free- reign to steal our technology. Practically everyone across the spectrum except Pat Buchanan and Richard Gephardt supported NAFTA and GATT. Since the Japanese and other "Asian Tiger" economies are still in the dumper, and the European economy is sluggish, I do not know what you are talking about when claiming the he has "done as well" with Japan and other world economies.
I do not propose "putting a religious agenda" into politics. I do propose not shying away from values discourse, and that also means not hiding religion in the attic.
As for the economy, yes, it mostly manages by itself. That is how capitalism works. Macroeconomic policy can affect things, but fortunately, Clinton was not able to do much. The recession lasted for seven months, we were pulling out of it before the election, but mysteriously the figures were not released until after. Given that Democrats were predicting another Great Depression in the '90s, due to the long term effects of Reagan's policies, and given the dearth of achievement of the current administration, it only seems fair to give Reagan the lion's share of the credit for setting the terms in the '80s.
Clinton has degraded military preparedness, and run a largely reactive foreign policy, one that merely puts out brush fires and delays decisions. His adventure in Kosovo was poorly run, and ended up getting about the same deal as Milosevic had offered in the first place. Meanwhile, he damaged relations with Russia and China. I do not know where you get the idea that he has been especially successful with North Korea, we just bribed them for temporary pacification.
By the way, the only reason that Clinton can claim to have reduced government was by the winding down of the military consequent upon the Cold War.
Anyway, the main thing you have to face is that Clinton has been fairly irrelevant to the decade. He got few domestic initiatives through, and many of his so- called foreign triumphs are dubious. For example, the accords on Northern Ireland seem to be falling apart, troops stationed in Bosnia seem to be indefinitely committed, and the KLA is refusing to turn over weapons, and American sponsored loans to Russia seem to have been misappropriated.
Meanwhile Clinton has disgraced his office, and lowered the standards by which we evaluate officeholders. If you do not think that that is very real damage to the country, then you are mistaken. |
