Monday, May 16, 2016

Reich also not so hot on Bill as economic advisor

Following up on this post, Robert Reich also has something to say about Bill Clinton being in charge of the economy. From his FB post:

"Hillary Clinton said yesterday that if elected president she’d put Bill Clinton “in charge of revitalizing the economy … because, you know, he knows how to do it.” The announcement suggests several things:

"In linking herself to the successes of Bill Clinton’s economic policies she also risks linking herself to the failures of those policies. I’m proud to have been part of his economic team, but those failings weren’t insignificant. Among them:

(1) Bill Clinton's decision to embrace deficit-reduction as the administration’s major economic goal;

(2) His decision to widen free trade through NAFTA and then, more broadly, through the World Trade Organization and to push for China’s accession to the WTO – which resulted in a huge increase in imports from China, and an incentive for American manufacturers to outsource abroad;

(3) His decision to sign the Republican's welfare bill that subsequently forced millions into poverty because it limited welfare to five years in a recipient’s lifetime,

(4) His decision to repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act and refusal to give the Commodity Futures Corporation authority over financial derivatives – both of which opened the floodgates to Wall Street’s excesses, and,

(5) When the budget moved into surplus, his decision to urge that those surpluses be used to “rescue” Social Security (which didn’t need rescuing) rather than for infrastructure, education, and other public investments."

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