[This makes twice this week that VodkaPundit Perma-Co-Guest-Blogger Will Collier has snuck out of his undisclosed location to file another great post. Take it away, Will...]
All of this has happened before; all of this will happen again.
Sherman, set the Wayback Machine for the bygone days of 1993, which up until last month was the last time a Democratic president took office accompanied by Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress.
After campaigning for a year and a half decrying “the worst economy in the last 50 years”–despite the fact that the mild recession of 1990-91 actually ended in March of ‘91–one of Bill Clinton’s first priorities was to try and ram through (wait for it) a “stimulus package.” Back in those days, politicians hadn’t yet realized that they could add another three zeroes to their raids on everybody else’s pockets, so the Clinton bill was by today’s outlandish standards relatively modest, starting at a mere $30 billion dollars. Most of that was sold as “targeted stimulus,” which meant it was carefully targeted to pay off Democratic grandees and constituencies that had contributed to the 1992 campaign
All of this has happened before; all of this will happen again.
Things did not go all that swimmingly for the Clinton “stimulus” package. By the middle of February, the bill had stalled in the Senate thanks to a Republican filibuster, and the White House sent out its chief economic advisor, Laura D’Andrea Tyson, to warn of the wonderful results should this recalcitrance end:
“The administration estimates that the stimulus package, taken by itself, will add about 0.3 percent to the annual growth rates of real gross domestic project in 1993 and 1994, creating 500,000 additional jobs by the end of 1994,” Tyson said. She forecast economic growth of 3.1 percent this year and 3.3 percent in 1994 if the package is approved.
The Clinton “stimulus” bill failed, going down to final defeat on April 22, 1993. It was never revived. As we all know, the American economy never recovered–oh, wait, that’s not correct. A year later, despite the non-presence of a federal “stimulus” law, unemployment had dropped from 7.1% to to 6.6%. Tyson’s growth prediction was not quite correct, either; the US GDP positively boomed in the fourth quarter of 1993 to the tune of 5.5%, and rose by 4% in 1994–all without the help of Clinton’s “stimulus” package.
The boom accelerated in the second half of the decade, with the greatest gains being realized from 1995 onwards–after the Democrats had been swept out of Congressional power, and as a result, Clinton’s penchants for tax hikes and big spending packages were effectively neutered. There were no grand “stimulus” packages from that point on, only good, old-fashioned gridlock that kept the government from raising taxes or spending to outrageous excess.
All of this has happened before… and if we’re very lucky, all of this will happen again.
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17 Comments
1. rbj:How does that line go
History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, then as a farce.
Feb 6, 2009 - 12:25 pm 2. jaymaster:And hopefully, what happened in the elections of 1994 will happen again in 2010.
Feb 6, 2009 - 1:15 pm 3. tim maguire:We can only hope. The Senate is sturggling with the stimulus bill. The more delay, the more opportunity people have to realize it’s unnecessary.
The best hope for a Republican takeover of congress is the bill’s passage, but in that case the damage will already have been done.
Feb 6, 2009 - 3:14 pm 4. tim maguire:Another fine post, by the way. The undisclosed location agrees with you.
Feb 6, 2009 - 3:15 pm 5. Patrick:That is why this bill must be killed. There is no telling how bad the damage to America will be if it passes.
Patrick
Feb 6, 2009 - 5:26 pm 6. Brother J:http://www.conservativeteaparty.com
RBJ,
History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. (attributed to Mark Twain)
Feb 7, 2009 - 9:28 am 7. Bob W (the new Kowalsky):If the President and Congress felt compelled to empty the treasury in some sort of ill-advised stimulus plan, I wish they simply would have bought me an Alpine White Dodge Challenger. . .
Feb 7, 2009 - 1:25 pm 8. arhooley:I just had a sleepless night as this monster was passed in the Senate. Yes, I know, it still has to go to conference, but everyone is talking as if it’s a done deal.
Now you post this thing that revives my frail hope that it still may die. Zombieland, here we come.
Feb 7, 2009 - 3:44 pm 9. Janus Daniels:You need charts to prove the success of Republican policies:
Feb 7, 2009 - 5:26 pm 10. bgates:http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/02/06/how-bad-is-it/
Janus, according to your link, we’re 13 months into the recession – but Republicans haven’t controlled Congress in 25 months.
“Congress”? Law-making body? Ringing any bells?
Feb 8, 2009 - 1:09 pm 11. Janus Daniels:Are you kidding, or can you point to any relevant laws passed in the last 25 months?
Feb 8, 2009 - 1:46 pm 12. McGehee:I notice that you made no attempt to defend Republicans; don’t expect me to defend the doormats… I mean Democrats.
The only “relevant laws” I can think of that might have been passed would have been to make the Bush tax cuts permanent and to de-entitlement-ize Social Security. And maybe to replace the income tax with something less “pro”-gressive.
The Republicans’ track record on those issues is nothing to defend.
Feb 8, 2009 - 4:24 pm 13. Janus Daniels:Obviously, we do have to draw pictures for you.
Feb 8, 2009 - 7:51 pm 14. McGehee:Try these:
http://chartjunk.karmanaut.com/taxplans/
http://www.cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/usdebt.htm
http://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2008/03/american-politi.html
“The Republicans’ track record on those issues is nothing to defend.”
You got that right.
There doesn’t seem to be a conversation going on here. Stephen, new content please!
Feb 9, 2009 - 7:47 am 15. Nathan:Janus,
The Republican track record is dismal, thanks to their tendency toward perpetual, debt-financed warfare. But do you think the Democrats are better? Clinton lucked into a period of economic growth that had nothing to do with his presidency, as well as a gridlock-friendly Republican congress; he acquiesced to a reduced deficit, but did little to promote it. Obama’s plan is to double down in Afghanistan while spending hundreds of billions on every imaginable boondoggle at home. This would be disastrous, both on your charts and to real people in the economy.
One does not have to be in love with Republicans to hope they win the next election convincingly.
Feb 9, 2009 - 2:28 pm 16. rosignol:Yeah. Based on recent experience, if the goal is economic growth, the optimal division of power is a Democratic President (which we’ve got), and a Republican Congress (which we don’t). The R’s will rein in the excesses of the D’s, the D will veto the excesses of the R’s, and only the important stuff will get done. Yay gridlock!
Right now, we’ve got the D’s cramming a wishlist throwing money at just about every idea they’ve had in the last 40 years through congress, and they mean to run the printing presses over at the Treasury 24/7 to pay for it all. That’s not good.
The R’s don’t have a lot to recommend them, other than being less bad about this stuff than the D’s- which is a pretty low bar, but it’s what we’ve got.
Feb 10, 2009 - 2:34 am 17. Veeshir:rosignol, you can also look back to the 80s when it was a GOP pres with a Dem Congress that fueled growth.
Feb 11, 2009 - 9:43 amThe question you have to ask is, “Which party do you want to control foreign policy?” and get that party to be pres while the other party gets Congress.
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