In her usual smug and arrogant manner, Hillary Clinton recently lambasted the Republicans on the state of the economy. According to an Associated Press news article today, "Clinton and Obama Slam McCain on Economy", Hillary said the following to a Pennsylvania AFL-CIO union group:
"John McCain admits he doesn't understand the economy -- and unfortunately he's proving it in this campaign...After seven disastrous years of George Bush and Dick Cheney, the stakes in this election couldn't be higher and the need to change course couldn't be more urgent. But John McCain is only offering more of the same."
According to the article, Hillary's economic proposal is basically more government spending: "Clinton proposed a plan on Tuesday to create 3 million new jobs through increased investments over 10 years in the U.S. infrastructure, and proposed a $10 billion emergency repair fund for critical repairs to bridges and highways."
First of all, economic policy should prioritize the creation of private sector jobs over government ones. Why? Because the private sector is what feeds the public sector, since it is the source of the government's money. Like her husband (and FDR years before him), Hillary's economic "cure" seems to be "Let's have the government create more jobs." She looks to government for everything. But the government has more money when the private sector is thriving. And the way that the private sector thrives is through the tax cuts that Hillary scorns.
Second, who says that the policies of Bush and Cheney aren't working? The AP has another news story today: "Dow skyrockets nearly 400 points amid economic optimism." Here are some quotes from that article:
"The Dow rose 391.47, or 3.19 percent, to 12,654.47. It marked the eighth-biggest point gain ever for the Dow, and the third time in two weeks it came close to or surpassed 400 points."
"And there was also optimism that commodities prices, which have hit historic highs in recent months, have begun to retreat. Crude fell 60 cents to settle at $100.98 on the New York Mercantile Exchange after earlier falling below $100. Meanwhile, gold dropped back below $900 an ounce."
"Meanwhile, Wall Street got another boost when the Institute for Supply Management said its March index of national manufacturing activity rose to a reading of 48.6 -- indicating a contraction, but a slower one than in February and tamer than many analysts had predicted. Government data on construction spending for February also came in better than expected."
Okay, I don't understand the last paragraph--manufacturing rose, yet contracted--but at least investors are investing and prices are falling.
This reminds me of the 1987 stock market crash, when liberal media outlets were calling Reagan a dummy because he wasn't initiating big government solutions. Well, we got out of that mess pretty fast, and Reagan appeared to be smarter than people thought. Similarly, we seem to be getting out of economic difficulty right now. Maybe there's more to Bush than meets the eye. Or, alternatively, perhaps one doesn't need a Ph.D. in economics to know what works.
Hillary has no cause to be smug. The economy started to decline near the end of Bill Clinton's Presidency, leading to the recession of the early 2000's. That recession was Clinton's recession.
And I just read Reagan's Disciple, by Lou and Carl Cannon, which argued that Clinton's balanced budget was actually caused by the end of the Cold War, since the U.S. no longer had to spend all that money on defense. Since Reagan ended the Cold War, I guess that Clinton's economic accomplishments were actually Reagan's. Imagine that!