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Re: Gold...........Which way its going?
Actually it would have been far easier in 1993 for Clinton to have listened to the left wing of his party and introduce a big spending bill to satisfy the party barons in the Democrat-controlled Congress. Instead he introduced balanced budgets that did indeed help reduce the government's share of borrowing as a percentage of GDP. And he did so in the teeth of unanimous Republican opposition.
The CPI definition, by the way, wasn't changed at the time of Clinton's first two (balanced) budgets, and that change was undertaken on the urging of, yes, Alan Greenspan, and supported enthusiastically by the then-Republican-controlled Congress.
Here's an excerpt from a contemporaneous piece from the NYT on February 22, 1995:
"At first glance, Alan Greenspan appeared to offer Congress a relatively painless way to slash $150 billion from the Federal deficit over the next five years. But when it comes to saving money in Washington, nothing is ever quite as simple as it seems.
"Last month, Mr. Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, told lawmakers that inflation might be overstated by as much as 1.5 percentage points in official Government figures. He suggested that a simple fix in the Consumer Price Index could reap big savings. How? Trimming the inflation numbers would mean lower payouts to Social Security beneficiaries, other recipients of Federal benefit programs and retired Government workers.
"Although the Fed chairman did not emphasize the point, lower consumer inflation numbers would also translate into higher tax bills because the annual inflation adjustments to income tax brackets and personal exemptions would be smaller.
"While Mr. Greenspan couched his proposal largely in technical terms, what he was doing was reopening a debate -- dormant for almost a decade -- over the larger political question of who should pay to narrow the budget gap.
"In the end, it is going to be a judgment and a political compromise," said Martin S. Feldstein, a Harvard economics professor who served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ronald Reagan. "Ultimately, it will be Congress that will change the law, after listening to a variety of experts."
"Mr. Greenspan's proposal was greeted enthusiastically by Republicans on Capitol Hill. He appeared to offer a way out of one of their biggest quandaries: how to cut spending on Federal entitlement programs without a specific vote that would clearly tamper with politically sacrosanct Social Security benefits. It would also allow Congress to increase tax revenues at a faster rate without requiring a political death wish: a vote to increase income taxes."
CPI gimmickry indeed, but let's get the history straight shall we?
The repeal of Glass Steagall was a mistake, undertaken in the form of a bill introduced by Sen Phil Gramm and passed on party-line votes by a Republican-controlled congress in both houses. A weak, scandal-plagued President signed it into law.
And a weak scandal-plagued President was unwilling to remove the man with the giant monetary punch bowl. Think about the timing of the reappointments and the inflation of tech bubble: "irrational exuberance" occurred after Clinton's first reappointment of Greenspan; the next appointment opportunity occurred in the midst of the Lewinsky scandal.
That's not to excuse the man, because there's no excuse for Mr. Bill. But there's no correlation between Clinton leaving Greenspan in office and his agreeing with Greenspan's philosophy. For Clinton, political survival was his philosophy.
This all started because you said Clinton inflated the tech bubble. Presidents don't make monetary policy, central bankers do.
Mind you, I'm not a Party man. But I refuse to buy into the historical revisionism of Republican financial rectitude and Democratic financial penury.
Originally posted by c1ue
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The CPI definition, by the way, wasn't changed at the time of Clinton's first two (balanced) budgets, and that change was undertaken on the urging of, yes, Alan Greenspan, and supported enthusiastically by the then-Republican-controlled Congress.
Here's an excerpt from a contemporaneous piece from the NYT on February 22, 1995:
"At first glance, Alan Greenspan appeared to offer Congress a relatively painless way to slash $150 billion from the Federal deficit over the next five years. But when it comes to saving money in Washington, nothing is ever quite as simple as it seems.
"Last month, Mr. Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, told lawmakers that inflation might be overstated by as much as 1.5 percentage points in official Government figures. He suggested that a simple fix in the Consumer Price Index could reap big savings. How? Trimming the inflation numbers would mean lower payouts to Social Security beneficiaries, other recipients of Federal benefit programs and retired Government workers.
"Although the Fed chairman did not emphasize the point, lower consumer inflation numbers would also translate into higher tax bills because the annual inflation adjustments to income tax brackets and personal exemptions would be smaller.
"While Mr. Greenspan couched his proposal largely in technical terms, what he was doing was reopening a debate -- dormant for almost a decade -- over the larger political question of who should pay to narrow the budget gap.
"In the end, it is going to be a judgment and a political compromise," said Martin S. Feldstein, a Harvard economics professor who served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ronald Reagan. "Ultimately, it will be Congress that will change the law, after listening to a variety of experts."
"Mr. Greenspan's proposal was greeted enthusiastically by Republicans on Capitol Hill. He appeared to offer a way out of one of their biggest quandaries: how to cut spending on Federal entitlement programs without a specific vote that would clearly tamper with politically sacrosanct Social Security benefits. It would also allow Congress to increase tax revenues at a faster rate without requiring a political death wish: a vote to increase income taxes."
CPI gimmickry indeed, but let's get the history straight shall we?
The repeal of Glass Steagall was a mistake, undertaken in the form of a bill introduced by Sen Phil Gramm and passed on party-line votes by a Republican-controlled congress in both houses. A weak, scandal-plagued President signed it into law.
And a weak scandal-plagued President was unwilling to remove the man with the giant monetary punch bowl. Think about the timing of the reappointments and the inflation of tech bubble: "irrational exuberance" occurred after Clinton's first reappointment of Greenspan; the next appointment opportunity occurred in the midst of the Lewinsky scandal.
That's not to excuse the man, because there's no excuse for Mr. Bill. But there's no correlation between Clinton leaving Greenspan in office and his agreeing with Greenspan's philosophy. For Clinton, political survival was his philosophy.
This all started because you said Clinton inflated the tech bubble. Presidents don't make monetary policy, central bankers do.
Mind you, I'm not a Party man. But I refuse to buy into the historical revisionism of Republican financial rectitude and Democratic financial penury.
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