Originally Posted By: tdtz
Clinton encouraged a loose money policy. Though he only requested specific action from the fed a few times, Greenspan's loose money policy was very much in line with his own. He also increased money supply through the treasury. His policies made money cheap. Cheap money finds its way to the investment market which contributed to the inflation of the bubble.

That's it. That's why you blame Clinton 14 yrs later for the Great Recession? Because "his policies made money cheap" back in the 1990s." OK. Wow.

You and wbtravis just won't give up on that nonsense trying to rewrite the Clinton surpluses. For those following along, factcheck and others debunked this nonsense years ago:
http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/
Bottom line: There was a surplus under Clinton no matter how hard you try to deny it.


More importantly, Clinton economic policy reversed Reaganomic policy and what happened? He raised taxes on the wealthy, but the economy did not crash. Amazing, let's repeat that - he raised taxes on the wealthy and the economy did not crash. In fact it started one of the best economic expansions in our history and yes, it ended in budget surpluses. The best budget performance in modern times no matter how you twist it. Bush Jr. felt so good about what he inherited from Clinton, he declared a $5.6 trillion dollar surplus for the next 10 years.

And then we went back to Reganomics Part 2 with even deeper tax cuts. The deficits returned and soared. The wealth of the wealthy soared and the middle class stagnated. Banks were allowed into the brokerage business and leveraged their assets like the 1920s. The result was a historic disaster.

With 40 years of recent data from two different approaches, it's quite obvious what works and what doesn't. The recent budget deficits have peaked and are beginning to come down. If the obstructions get out of the way and allow a balanced approach to this problem, I'm confident the deficits will continue to decline steadily.