On Sunday Former President Bill Clinton appeared on ABC's "This Week", with George Stephanopoulos, his former advisor as the interviewer. It was a truly remarkable interview in a lot of ways, not the least of which were the historically unusual attacks on his successor, President Bush.
There is a lot worthy of commentary and analysis as I looked over the transcript. Some have already had their say; I'd like to address a couple of other points.
Early on in the interview this exchange took place.
STEPHANOPOULOS: We're here on your initiative, and I want to talk about that, but let's begin with Katrina. President Bush has brought you into the recovery effort, but he's not taking all of your advice. You say roll back the tax cuts for the wealthy. He says no tax increase of any kind. We're spending $5 billion a month in Iraq, probably $200 billion on Katrina. Something's got to give.
CLINTON: Well, that's what I think. I think this idea — I think it's very important that Americans understand, you know, tax cuts are always popular, but about half of these tax cuts since 2001 have gone to people in my income group, the top 1 percent. I've gotten four tax cuts.
They're responsible for this big structural deficit, and they're not going away, the deficits aren't. Now, what Americans need to understand is that that means every single day of the year, our government goes into the market and borrows money from other countries to finance Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina and our tax cuts. We have never done this before. Never in the history of our republic have we ever financed a conflict, military conflict, by borrowing money from somewhere else.
Except that we did borrow to finance World War II, astronomical amounts for that day and age.
The United States economic surge started in 1940 and 1941, a prelude to the wartime "production miracle" which managed to maintain civilian consumption while growing the overall economy. Contributions to this came from increasing labour force participation and reducing private investment, while war financing followed the traditional approach of deficit spending until tax increases caught up.
Actually until reduced need for the massive military spending allowed the economy to catch up. How much debt was there?
In 1929 the debt was 16.9 billion and when the Depression began and World War II occurred the United States under Franklin Delano Roosevelt began true deficit spending. All of those New Deal programs were paid for with money we did not really have. The debt in 1940 ran to 42.9 billion and mushroomed to 258 billion as the nation foughjt World War II.
So he's incorrect about that.
Like most Democrats he continues to plug the "tax cuts for the rich" line that's worked so well for them in the last two presidential elections. Considering that 32% of tax"payors" pay no income tax at all it'd be an extraordinary challenge to cut their income tax. Mr. Clinton's defense of keeping high tax rates on "the rich" is that cuts are irresponsible in the light of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Hurricane Katrina. My question for Mr. Clinton is, are they irresponsible also when the government is running a surplus? Because he vetoed a tax cut in 1999 in just that situation.
Despite President Bill Clinton's repeated threat to veto the Republicans' newly redesigned $792 billion tax cut plan, the Senate on Thursday narrowly approved the measure by a 50-49 vote, a few hours after the House passed it 221-206.
President Clinton issued an immediate condemnation, saying that no matter when the bill reaches his desk, "I will have no choice but to veto it immediately. It threatens Social Security and Medicare, makes it harder to pay off the debt, and imperils the prosperity that has brought real benefits to American families."
So, having vetoed the tax cut, he immediately put forward a plan to save Social Security and Medicare for the future. ... Errr, I guess not. Bottom line: for Bill Clinton, taxes should only increase.
The fact is, Mr. Clinton, that the top 20% income group pays 65% of all taxes. Given that that's the case almost any tax cut will "disproportionately" favor that top 20%. Mr. Bush inherited a burgeoning recession from your administration, then was thumped with the attacks on 9-11, futher dampening the economy. I know it's painful for you to admit this, but even your fed chairman Alan Greenspan agrees: the tax cuts stimulated the economy, getting it moving again. The growth data since the cuts took effect has been fairly remarkable.
Recently released Commerce Department figures show that the U.S. economy grew at a solid 3.4 percent annual rate in the second quarter, the ninth straight quarter in which GDP increased at a rate above 3 percent.
Sure, we'd rather not have the deficits, though as a percentage of GDP they're not all that high. But the way out is to restrain discretionary pork spending and reform the entitlement programs that swallow ever larger portions of the government pie. You know, the same spending restraint that the Republican Congress began enforcing on you in 1994.
9/21/05 0830: Via Woody's News, Chester takes apart another section of this interview, the discussion of Iraq policy.
I would also point out that both Mr. Stephanopoulos and Mr. Clinton agree we're losing(?!) in Afghanistan. That'd be news to the people who took part in the elections there on Sunday.
9/21/05 2115: Everyone's getting into the act. Yet another fisking of a portion of this pathetic interview, this one courtesy of Ms. Zanotti.
9/21/05 2235: Here's another. Stephen Johnson over at The Right Place notes that FEMA during the Clinton Administration was not always so well prepared.
