Visit the Photo Place

It wasn't Reagan or Newtie, but Clinton who made economy hum

Date published: 12/9/2002

WASHINGTON--In 2002, Rep.- elect Michael Michaud, D-Maine, was a genuine exception among Democratic House candidates: a blue-collar, dues-paying union member who had worked in the paper mill for 28 years, who is pro-life, and who, in a district previously represented by moderate Republicans--won.

All this after Michaud publicly embraced the Man Republicans Love to Hate, former president Bill Clinton.

Here, according to the estimable columnist E.J. Dionne, is what candidate Michaud had to say to Clinton in October before 2,500 Maine citizens in Augusta:

"The country's economy was in the ditch, and you made the hard decisions and turned things around. But the Republicans in Washington could never give you any credit. Oh no. They said it was not Bill Clinton who brought prosperity, it was the House Republicans and Alan Greenspan. Guess what? We still have the House Republicans. We still have Alan Greenspan. And where's the economy? Back in the ditch."

This Michaud fellow is clearly on to something.

For the past decade, there has been a conservative crusade to (a) deny Bill Clinton's policies any credit for the historic prosperity the nation enjoyed during his presidency or (b) deny that those good old Clinton days were really that good at all.

First, when Clinton won the White House, the federal budget deficit was at a historic high of $290 billion, 10 million Americans were out of work, and the nation's economic growth rate under the outgoing Republican administration was the lowest in more than half a century.

Clinton introduced his controversial economic plan that raised the income taxes of the richest 1.4 percent of Americans. We immediately heard from the Gloom and Doom congressional Republicans, every one of whom voted against the Clinton plan. House Republican Whip Newt Gingrich predicted, "This is the Democrat machine's recession, and each one of them will be held personally accountable."

What followed is unarguable: creation of more than 22 million new jobs; the nation's lowest unemployment rate in 30 years; the lowest unemployment rate among women in 40 years; and the lowest Hispanic and African- American unemployment rates in history.

Follow us on

Read more stories about Fredericksburg
Date published: 12/9/2002