The Economy After 4 years: Clinton vs. Bush

SMIRKnCHIMP said:

Suffice to say, Clinton's first 4 years outshine Bush's by a mile.

The figures are called out in the extended entry:

Job growth: annual average (payroll survey):
Clinton: +2,835,000
Bush: -455,000

Economic growth (change in inflation-adjusted gross domestic product):
Clinton: +3.7% per year
Bush: +2.5% per year

Inflation (change in consumer price index):
Clinton: +2.8% per year
Bush: +3.4% per year

Median household income, change:
Clinton: +1.7% per year
Bush: -1.6% per year

Number of Americans in poverty (average change per year):
Clinton: -800,000
Bush: +1.5 million

Number of Americans without health insurance (average change per year):
Clinton: +145,000
Bush: +1,885,000

Federal surplus/deficit (annual average):
Clinton: +$5 billion
Bush: -$350 billion

Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Census Bureau, White House Office of Management and Budget, National Assn. of Realtors.

http://www.latimes.com/media/graphic/2004-07/13574639.gif

Jobs:
Clinton Economy:
Created 22 million jobs

bush Economy:
3 million + jobs lost

Deficts:

Clinton Left a $233 Billion surplus

bush is by year end to have a $700 deficit= $933 billon hole dug in 5 years....if $1,000,000,000,000 in FEDERAL deficit spending is not enough to SuperCharge the Economy what more do you Republicans NEED?

Click to expand...

cnredd said:

Is this a debate or an unsolicited smackdown? Either way, it's been addressed to the hilt before...Old hat here....

Click to expand...

SMIRKnCHIMP said:

REally...well... my friend I just arrived today..so I missed it.... why don't you give it your best shot.......a silly sidestep.... will not work with me.

The one thing a Republican/Conservative hates worse than a liberal ...is the truth

Click to expand...

SMIRKnCHIMP said:

My friend you may contend all you like, the numbers do not lie.

Click to expand...

cnredd said:

....2) By your attacks and your little red quote, it's pretty obvious you wouldn't care to listen, and all comments would be met with "Bush sucks; Right-wing bastards...etc"....So you give me no motivation...if you came here and posed something objectively, I probably would have given it a shot. But I try not to debate the undebatable...

Click to expand...

128shot said:

Reagan started it Bush cemented it, some say Clinton destroyed it, but the 90s was a ride because of what Reagan and Bush Sr. did.

Look it up, its on the table.

Click to expand...

128shot said:

Reagan started it Bush cemented it, some say Clinton destroyed it, but the 90s was a ride because of what Reagan and Bush Sr. did.

Look it up, its on the table.

Click to expand...

IValueFreedom said:

HAHAHA

Isn't this the pot calling the kettle black.

Although this is even worse, because you have no idea how this person debates. Yet, on the other hand, anyone in this forum can see that you exemplify all those negative characteristics that you pointed out.

Click to expand...

128shot said:

Clinton did absolutely nothing. Bush did raise taxes a bit didn't he?

I do believe that paid off in the end, along with the dot com boom and other things. The economy pretty much raised itself, Clinton did nothing.

Click to expand...

128shot said:

Clinton did absolutely nothing. Bush did raise taxes a bit didn't he?

I do believe that paid off in the end, along with the dot com boom and other things. The economy pretty much raised itself, Clinton did nothing.

Click to expand...

Iriemon said:

So sure, the economy has a natural growth cycle of its own, but by running a fiscally responsible budget, Clinton helped to create an environment where the economy could grow at a post-war record level.

Click to expand...

cnredd said:

That's one version...

Another would be that Reagan/Bush41 created the environment that Clinton lived through, and Clinton created the environment that Bush43 is living through now.

Click to expand...

The cycles that you speak of are...
1) Hardly pertain to who is the executive...
2) Rarely provide immediate results...

If the President signs a bill RIGHT NOW that happens to be the best bill ever passed...providing the perfect economic condition for every person in America, the RESULTS of that bill will not be seen for another 4 or 5 years.

Click to expand...

By that time, a new President will be in office and reap the rewards of the previous administration

Click to expand...

cnredd said:

I only attack the attackable...

If you start with "I believe the Bush Administration is wrong because...", then you get respect and an actual debate...

If you start with "Bush sucks! Cheney is Darth Vader!....", then my response will not be respectable or worthy of debate...

I have no qualms in someone, as you've done here, believing I just write snide comments...That just tells me you see what you want to see.

As pertaining to this individual(SMIRKnCHIMP)...Let's take a look at the threads he's started recently...

The Economy After 4 years: Clinton vs. Bush
What Republicans MUST believe..
Letter To My President
From those you who believe in George bush, I ask
$500,000,000,000 to make us less safe
"great" Antimated Political Cartoon

Check out every opening statement...unmitigated and unsolicited attacks on the President and/or Republicans in general...

Now please tell me how I'm supposed to repond to this with any respect or objectivity when the original post shows none?

Click to expand...

cnredd said:

Exactly...He was a "feel good" guy in a "feel good" era...the exact definition
of a "Caretaker President"...

No one has still answered this question....

My contention is that the US surged economically, not because of, AND not in spite of, Bill Jeff....He gets the credit simply because he was THERE. I see stuff like this...The economy has created more than 22.5 million jobs in less than eight years...Well?...What did Clinton have to do with it? Where is the peice of paper with his signature on it that made all of these jobs appear?????

Click to expand...

Iriemon said:

If that theory were true -- that Reagan's policy made the economy wonderful and Clinton just reaped the benefit, it doesn't explain the rescession of '91. The economy was just climbing out of the rescession when Clinton took office.

Click to expand...

Iriemon said:

I agree to an extent. I also think that the president can affect the economy merely by how he reacts to it -- a degree of economic (particularly stock market) performance is sociological, IMO.

Click to expand...

Iriemon said:

For the record, I do not think comparisons of economic performance such as started this thread make a whole lot of sense for the reasons you raise.

Click to expand...

Iriemon said:

However, the Govt certainly can have an impact on fiscal policies, and even if those policies do not have an immediate effect on the economy, the results of those policies can be seen rapidly. The biggest case in point are the huge deficits and the addtional $2.1 trillion of debt that has been piled on since Bush took office.

Click to expand...

cnredd said:

By that time, a new President will be in office and reap the rewards of the previous administration.

Click to expand...

Iriemon said:

The rewards ... or the problems.

Click to expand...

cnredd said:

To me, that sounds like Clinton had a positive reaction to the up-start dot-coms and let the false economic structure keep inflating to a point where at collapsed in on itself. I don't believe it, but your comment swings the door open for that possibility.

Click to expand...

Which, once again, could be debated that Clinton set Bush up for the "big fall" through his tax increases, his laissez-faire attitude toward Silicon Valley, and his economic policies in general. 9/11 wasn't much of a helper either.

Click to expand...

SMIRKnCHIMP said:

WHINEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE louder I'm having trouble hearing you down here on the Redneck Riveria!


That is all you can do is whine you can't refute the facts.

Click to expand...

Iriemon said:

What "false economic structure?" I agree that there was overspeculation in the stock market in the late 90s which resulted in a correction in '00, and that had some effect on the economy. But that doesn't support the implication that growth in the 90s was all smoke and mirrors. Even after the correction, economic growth, job growth, and even stock market performance were phenomenal.

Click to expand...

It's more than simple overspeculation, the dot coms were mainly where that phenomena happened, that bubble burst because the companies were basing profit off of basic usage, the only backing assets they had were their domain names and they were sporting double digit P/E ratios which should've been the huge red flag right there. The other problem was that many of the accountability standards of the SEC were scaled back, so accounting firms such as and probably not limited to Anderson were cooking books like crazy, one of the favorite dirty tricks was to take out huge loans and report them as assets which was a HUGE no-no, this should have been listed as a liability ethically and legally and can change the value of a stock immensely, this was a much worse problem than overspeculation in that even the savviest of investors would understandably believe that they were buying a prime share in a very strong company, that coupled with the fact that the federal government also did some creative accounting also helped to make the overall economy look much better than it was, examples;
the budget surplus- not really a surplus, yes, the books were showing black for government agencies for the first time in years, two problems;
1) the "surplus" was actually based on future projections, the agencies were still in the red as far as actual dollars.
2) a massive national debt, any real surplus that may have existed would still have been trumped by the fact that the U.S. owes too much money for that to be of any effect other than good feelings.

LOL - well, Clinton was a much cleverer guy than Bush, can't argue against that!

Click to expand...

I got a chuckle out of the "cleverer" usage, that sounded to me like a Bushism, sorry if I misunderstood but thought it was funny.

I don't "blame" Bush for the slowdown in '01. I do blame him for the $2 trillion in debt that has been added. No doubt the slowdown in the economy had an affect on government revenues.

Click to expand...

The interesting fact is that revenues have increased to the Fed after the tax cuts, that doesn't excuse the presidents increases in spending however, but I firmly believe that was his olive branch to the democratic party, if I am mistaken then I will be sorely dissappointed.

However, by the Bush administration's own calculations, his tax cuts and new spending programs were responsible for a trillion dollars of deficit in 00-04.

Click to expand...

That's mostly because of the war in my opinion, however, the countries economy typically explodes after a major war.

Click to expand...

LaMidRighter said:

It's more than simple overspeculation, the dot coms were mainly where that phenomena happened, that bubble burst because the companies were basing profit off of basic usage, the only backing assets they had were their domain names and they were sporting double digit P/E ratios which should've been the huge red flag right there. The other problem was that many of the accountability standards of the SEC were scaled back, so accounting firms such as and probably not limited to Anderson were cooking books like crazy, one of the favorite dirty tricks was to take out huge loans and report them as assets which was a HUGE no-no, this should have been listed as a liability ethically and legally and can change the value of a stock immensely, this was a much worse problem than overspeculation in that even the savviest of investors would understandably believe that they were buying a prime share in a very strong company, that coupled with the fact that the federal government also did some creative accounting also helped to make the overall economy look much better than it was, examples;

Click to expand...

A long-winded explanation of the same thing -- for whatever reason, there was overspeculation in the markets. Not the first time in history this stuff happened, nor the last, we are probably seeing it in parts of the housing market.

the budget surplus- not really a surplus, yes, the books were showing black for government agencies for the first time in years, two problems;
1) the "surplus" was actually based on future projections, the agencies were still in the red as far as actual dollars.
2) a massive national debt, any real surplus that may have existed would still have been trumped by the fact that the U.S. owes too much money for that to be of any effect other than good feelings.

Click to expand...

True, accounting tricks are played (which is how the WH can proclaim the deficit will "only" be $300 billion this year when the govt has already borrowed more thatn $500 billion). But three points to your two points:

1) Regardless of whether there was an actual "surplus," you cannot (reasonably) deny that government borrowing has vastly increased during the current Administration from its late 1999s levels

2) There actually was a surplus. Both in terms of how the Govt calculates it (See Congressional Budget Office Historical Data, http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1821&sequence=0), and in terms of gross public debt, which decreased (for the first time in decades) more than $100 billion between 12/31/99 ($5,776 biillion) and 12/31/00 ($5,662 bilion); Clinton's last year in office. You can get the number from theTreasury Department. http://www2.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opd.htm

3) The massive federal debt is directly the result of Republican deficit budgets. It doesn't get better by borrowing another $600 billion every year. It only gets better by balancing the budget and running a surplus. Which under Clinton we had started doing (see point (2)).

I got a chuckle out of the "cleverer" usage, that sounded to me like a Bushism, sorry if I misunderstood but thought it was funny.

Click to expand...

I'm too cleverer from my own good.

The interesting fact is that revenues have increased to the Fed after the tax cuts,

Click to expand...

I assume you mean revenues to the Federal Govt, not the Federal Reserve.

This statement, which I have often heard Bush supporters make, is simply not true.

Total Federal revenues.
Source: Congressional Budget office.
http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1821&sequence=0

2000 2025.2
2001 1991.2
2002 1853.2
2003 1782.3
2004 1881.1

The decreases in income tax revenues are even more pronounced:

2000 1004.5
2001 994.3
2002 858.3
2003 793.7
2004 809.0

Same source. Income tax revenues last year were still $200 billion lower than in 2000.

that doesn't excuse the presidents increases in spending however, but I firmly believe that was his olive branch to the democratic party, if I am mistaken then I will be sorely dissappointed.

Click to expand...

I suppose that is one way to look at it. Pandering to the electorate would be another. I don't recall Bush giving the Democrats credit for the Prescription Drug Boondoggle in the '04 election.

That's mostly because of the war in my opinion, however, the countries economy typically explodes after a major war

Click to expand...

The Iraq war, which was supposed to be a quick in and out and cost relatively little, has cost the country over $300 billion, that is true. But that only represents a small portion of the $2.1 trillion this Administration has borrowed from our future. So far.

The Vietnam war took a heavy toll on the economy. The 70s were characterized by stagflation, stagnant or declining markets, and modest economic performance. In '73-75 the country experienced a pretty nasty recession.

Click to expand...

128shot said:

Reagan started it Bush cemented it, some say Clinton destroyed it, but the 90s was a ride because of what Reagan and Bush Sr. did.


Look it up, its on the table.

Click to expand...