Clinton Calls For More Time

[babylonsister]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_09/025534.php

CLINTON CALLS FOR MORE TIME.... Sam Seder came upon an important realization yesterday: "Now we know -- it takes 8 years of GOP control to totally f**k up our economy and only 18 months to blame Dems for it."

As it turns out, just a few hours later, former President Bill Clinton campaigned for Rep. Mike McMahon (D-N.Y.) yesterday, and emphasized a similar point: Dems just need more time to clean up the mess Republicans left behind.

"The Republicans say you have to throw all the Democrats out because of the economy," Clinton told a crowd of 1,600 at Wagner College. "We knew we could not get out of the hole in 21 months." <...>

McMahon's Republican challengers may criticize him for supporting President Obama's economic stimulus package, Clinton said, but the bill "gave money to state and local governments so they wouldn't have to lay off a million teachers and health care workers or turn around and raise taxes on you to keep them working, which would have been a disaster in this economy."

Clinton cautioned against a repeat of the years after he left the White House, when Republicans turned his budget surplus into the biggest deficit in the nation's history.

"We can't let them do it again," Clinton railed.

"We need individuals who think and do what's right for you," he added. "You've got to have people who think, not ideologues. Republicans are utterly impervious to evidence."

The message has the added benefit of being true -- if Dems had more time, they might have more success addressing the disasters they inherited from Republicans -- but it seems unlikely to resonate. Voters seem to have very short memories, and are more than a little impatient. If that means rewarding the party that created our current predicaments, and which fought tooth and nail for 21 months to prevent things from getting better, so be it.

—Steve Benen

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Yeah! Bush's deregulation of the banks will take many years to fix!

As will Bush's free trade agreements!

That's why our government needed to pledge more than $12 Trillion to bankers, and less than 7% of that to the rest of the country!

What... it wasn't Bush who did those things? It was Clinton? And he also made a deal with Gingrich to slash Social Security?

Never mind.

[jaxx]

2. What deal did he make with the newt?

And NAFTA was a bush agreement, signed by Clinton. Not Clinton initiated.

[MannyGoldstein]

4. Here, for example:

http://politics.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2008/02/28/how-monica-killed-a-clinton-gingrich-pact.html

As to NAFTA - at the very least, Clinton lobbied hard for it and signed it, and in any case it wasn't nearly as destructive as almost-free-trade with China, which was Clinton's baby.

[ProSense]

3. Clinton's deregulation was

followed by Bush's complete incompetence and negligence. Bush is primarily responsible for the mortgage crisis.

Also, Bush waited until the near collapse of the economy, in late 2008, before taking any action.

[MannyGoldstein]

5. Are you saying that if it weren't for Bush, we wouldn't

have had a near-total collapse of the world economic system, requiring each American to pledge a year's salary to bailing out banks, bankers, and banker bonuses?

[ProSense]

6. Yes, that's what I'm saying.

Want me to repeat it?

[MannyGoldstein]

7. OK. So why did we have Glass-Steagall for more than 60 years?

Was it harming the American economy?

[ProSense]

8. What does that have to do with

the fact that Bush was a fuck up?

[MannyGoldstein]

10. You're claiming that Clinton's repeal of Glass-Steagall

was not the cause of the New Depression. If that's the case, why did we have that law in place for 60+ years?

[Stevepol]

9. Good line: Repubs are "utterly impervious to evidence."

They decide everything on the basis of a little box of ideology they've got protected behind walls that are a mile thick.

[donheld]

11. More time to consult with Goldman Sachs?