For all the progressives & Hillary-fans out there talking up the economic legacy of Bill Clinton, a president who inherited an economic recovery from his predecessor, George Herbert Walker Bush, and whose presidency happened to coincide with the tech. bubble, how about a reminder of some of Bill's economic accomplishments while in office ?* I've divided them into two groups, one subjectively 'good', one subjectively 'bad'. Your guess which is which.
NAFTA (North American Free Tree Agreement)
'Welfare-Reform'
The DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act)
Telecommunications Act of 1996
Permanent Most Favoured Nation status for the People's Republic of China
GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade)
Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 (i.e. partial reform of Glass-Steagall)
Balanced the budget (Repubs. would probably dispute credit for this one)*
FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993)
Increased the Minimum Wage
Expanded EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit)
Expansion of Head-Start programme
Attempted (and failed miserably) to bring about universal healthcare-reform.
So, a record on balance to celebrate ? Consider for one, what was/is the impact of these changes, short-term...and long...
*I am talking here about things Clinton actually did while in office, or was significantly involved in getting through Congress. One of the things at least on my list (the one starred) is very debatable, and things like employment-figures and stock-market numbers are impossible to separate out between the multitudinous number of potential causal factors, most of which are probably outside of the control of any sitting president.
** Although I provided Wiki links for most of this stuff, I'm assuming a certain level of familiarity with this history and the politics thereof, which Wikipedia alone probably won't provide.
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