Andrew used to work for this publication, whose unflinching support of the Iraq War angered people like me. But this analysis, in language even a non-wonk like me can understand, is crucial to understanding our present. And past. And President.
... if it works, Obama will have truly found the Third Way Clinton grasped for a decade ago.
...It is essential that we be reminded of the context of this stuff, because most of the daily media says nothing about history. And when they do, it's usually grossly simplified and therefore inaccurate. In the meantime, who was paying attention back then? I need to be reminded.
Before long, the economy was creating jobs at a dizzying clip--ten million between 1993 and 1997, another eight million between 1997 and 2000. Rising productivity was driving up wages across the income spectrum. By some measures, poverty was the lowest since the government had begun keeping track. It really did look like shrinking deficits had triggered lower interest rates and unleashed a wave of private investment that was powering the economy to new heights.
It's what came next that darkens the narrative. Amid all the new economy triumphalism, the Clintonites deregulated the telecommunications industry and repealed New Deal-era restrictions on bank consolidation. In 1997, Clinton even signed a bill lowering the capital-gains tax rate, that perennial GOP fetish. Having begun their administration grudgingly appeasing Greenspan, the Clintonites gradually embraced his view that, in many cases, government could do no better than step aside.
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