by Mona Charen
As the fight continues over whether to raise taxes to ratify the additional $3.6 trillion President Obama and the Democrats have spent in just 27 months, you hear the same refrain from Democrats: We must raise taxes to the levels of the Clinton administration. This is always followed by flights of exaggeration portraying the Clinton era economic record as "The Greatest Peacetime Expansion in American History," or in world history, or in galactic history.
They seem to think it was the tax hikes that produced the prosperity.
The economy did expand during Bill Clinton's presidency — though not quite as much as it had during the Reagan years. Ronald Reagan's presidency required a steep recession to undo the mistakes of his predecessors. Despite that, his overall record was astounding. Real GDP increased 32 percent under Reagan (it was 31 percent under Clinton). Disposable income grew 22.7 percent under Reagan versus 20.4 percent under Clinton. Obviously, both look luxurious from this remove.
And how many wars were we paying for during Reagans term?
ReplyDeleteWhy is it that nobody wants to talk about just how much the Iraq and Afgan wars are STILL costing us?
Not just in dollars, but in lives as well!
People seem to forget that just because the Republican President is no longer in office who intiated the waste of money over there, we STILL have to continue to pay for it.
I'm so sick of this hard dividing lines between the two parties.
Republicans AND Democrats have BOTH showed they're no longer willing to do what is RIGHT for THIS country and for WE THE PEOPLE!