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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: greenspirit who wrote (54357)	7/15/2004 10:15:33 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793917

And a hello to you in Italy, Michael. On your post, if Bill and I have different points of view which make serious, thoughtful conversation something of a reach; you and I are simply in different worlds. We've tried in the past and both have despaired. Your version of the Clinton presidency is not even within talking distance of basic premises for me. Let's take the economics stuff. It's simply basic to a discussion of economic policy during the Clinton years to note that he had to make a decision, before taking office, between tax breaks for the middle class and reducing the deficit. Bob Rubin, among others, won that debate as over against Stan Greenberg, George Stephanopolous, Robert Reich and others. That policy was then the basic building block for the huge economic growth of the 90s, including the massive surpluses generated by the federal government. Whatever else one argues about the Clinton presidency, that economic program is simply a given. My own position is that he gave away too much so that the various ways government provides support continued to decline during the Clinton years. We see it in Jersey through the increasing growth of property taxes (the WSJ had an interesting article in yesterday's edition on the national problem with same). One can easily see it in the serious decline in urban k-12 education. The list is actually and genuinely endless. So I'm not an unambiguous supporter of Clinton economic policies. But I think one has to admit they did what they were advertised to do. And Bob Rubin will definitely go down as one of the finest secretaries of the treasury ever, perhaps the finest.