Clinton Misses an Opportunity To Share With Democrats the Economic Wisdom He Learned 30 Years Ago

The era of Bill Clinton’s wisdom is over. The former president spoke to the Democratic National Convention last night.Yet he failed to share with all those Democrats any of the economic wisdom he learned from his own Presidency, roughly 30 years ago. In his first term, he jacked up taxes on individuals and businesses, and his wife Hillary tried to nationalize healthcare. And the voters rebelled. In the 1994 midterm, voters threw out the Democrats by the droves and elected a Republican House for the first time in forty years, and delivered a landslide GOP victory in the Senate. In other words, they repudiated Mr. Clinton’s high tax and spend policies of his first two years. And then he changes policies. Big time. And became a pretty good economic President.Following his stinging midterm election defeats, in his 1995 State of the Union message he changed course, saying: “Let’s change the government — let’s make it smaller, less costly and smarter.”By 1996, he opened his State of the Union message by saying: “The era of big government is over.”Working with Speaker Gingrich, Mr. Clinton forged a whole new pro-growth policy by cutting the capital gains tax and signing the best welfare reform bill in history. Millions of people were taken off the welfare rolls and went back to work, and the country prospered. Investor spirits rose, and the Information Age moved into high gear. Mr. Clinton oversaw a leaner government, and almost miraculously strong economic growth turned a budget deficit into a surplus. He was re-elected in 1996, but he continued to work hand in glove with the Gingrich Republicans. Now, here’s the tragedy of his speech last night: he talked about none of this. I don’t think he even mentioned the economy, even though he was the best Democratic economic president since John F. Kennedy’s gold-based tax cutting. And, like every other major speaker, Mr. Clinton completely avoided Vice President Harris’ wacky economic speech last Friday. That $2 trillion spending and price-control disaster that was heavily criticized by conservatives and liberals, including the left-wing Washington Post — it has seemingly been deleted from Democratic memory. As in, no one wants to talk about it. That includes across the board tax hikes that will do enormous damage to the economy, which recent job revisions suggest is a lot weaker than originally thought. And the $2 trillion in spending is even bigger than the inflationary spending bills of 2021 and 2022, where she cast the deciding votes in favor.Listening to these Democrats for the last three nights, it seems like Ms. Harris’s major economic speech has fallen into an existential memory hole.How she’s going to handle it tonight remains to be seen.Perhaps she’ll flip-flop it and say the whole thing was really a ruse when she was much younger 7 days ago.Here’s where Mr. Clinton should have come into play.He should have stood up there in front of the convention and said: “Look, I jacked up taxes in 1993, along with my wife attempted a massive tax and spend and regulatory takeover of the health care system, and unfortunately my Democratic Party got slaughtered in the midterm election.”So, in a friendly way, he could say: “I’d like to give you some good advice. Voters are in no mood for big taxes, big spending, and big inflation. Let this be a warning. As much as I respect Joe Biden and support Kamala Harris, I’m warning you not to go out on a big government limb that will cost you all three houses in 75 days.” Mr. Clinton could add: “I learned my lesson the hard way, but I did learn it. And you know what? Sometimes Republicans have better ideas than we do. So I went along with many of them, and I was re-elected handsomely and the country prospered.”Mr. Clinton did say that there should be much more respect among people who disagree, more civil discourse. Even though he took a couple of cheap shots at President Trump. What was totally missing from his speech, though, was the kind of economic wisdom that he learned so well thirty years ago. In that important sense, both Mr. Clinton and the Democratic Party missed what could’ve been an enormously important learning moment last night. From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business Network.

Clinton Misses an Opportunity To Share With Democrats the Economic Wisdom He Learned 30 Years Ago

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