Alex Henderson

The Political Zone

Bill Clinton: The Real Deficit Hawk

Former President's Speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention Reminds Americans What a Genuine Deficit Hawk Looks Like

By Alex Henderson
RealmNoir, September 6, 2012

During his barnburner of a speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina on September 5, former president Bill Clinton reminded Americans of an important fact that most Republicans would prefer to forget: the biggest presidential deficit hawk of the last 30 years was not a Republican, but a Democrat. Clinton delivered one of the best lines of the convention: “People ask me all the time how we delivered four surplus budgets. What new ideas did we bring? I always give a one-word answer: arithmetic.” And it was not only a great line; it was absolutely true.

Clinton, during his two terms as president, was very much a deficit hawk—and when he left office in January 2001, the United States had a budget surplus. Clinton was much more of a budget hawk than the two Republican presidents who came before him: George H.W. Bush, Sr. and Ronald Reagan. And he was certainly more of a budget hawk than the disastrous Republican president who came after him: George W. Bush, Jr., who proved to be the ultimate tax-and-borrow Republican and squandered the surplus that Clinton left the country with.

During Clinton’s two terms, Republicans tried to paint him as a “tax-and-spend Democrat.” But Clinton believed in the pay-as-you-go approach to government; if you’re going to spend, you need tax revenue to maintain a balanced budget. Clinton raised federal taxes on the wealthiest Americans, which resulted in a lot of tax revenue—especially in light of the fact that many middle class entrepreneurs became rich during the economic boom of the 1990s.

Ironically, Clinton didn’t tax the wealthiest Americans nearly as much as they were taxed under Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s; under Ike, the U.S. had a federal income tax rate of 91% for the wealthiest Americans (down from 92% under his Democratic predecessor, Harry S. Truman, a.k.a. Give-‘Em-Hell-Harry). But then, Eisenhower was quite moderate compared to the fiscally irresponsible Republicans of today—and to the delusional Rush “Pillhead” Limbaugh crowd, Clinton was penalizing the rich for their success. Truth be told, however, Clinton was something that Reagan and Bush, Sr. never were: a deficit hawk.

Noting that Clinton balanced the federal budget is not to say that everything was perfect financially during the Clinton years. It was during the Clinton years that the Glass-Steagall Act (a valuable piece of New Deal-era legislation) was repealed and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was passed; 1992 presidential hopeful Ross Perot was absolutely correct in his assertion that NAFTA (that “giant sucking sound”) would be terrible for American workers. Economically, Clinton had his good points and his bad, and a balanced federal budget was among the good points.

Republican Dick Cheney, vice president under Bush, Jr., infamously stated that “deficits don’t matter.” But they do matter. They matter a lot, and Clinton, unlike Bush, Jr. and Cheney, realized that. Now, in 2012, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan are campaigning on deficit reduction—which is quite laughable in light of the fact that so many modern-day Republicans believe in spending like crazy without raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans. Romney’s math simply doesn’t add up; if an administration is going to spend a fortune on all of the things that Romney believes in spending money on (imperialist wars and empire-building, the War on Drugs, federal obscenity prosecutions of porn companies), raising taxes on millionaires and billionaires is absolutely necessary. Either you raise taxes or you cut spending; most of today’s Republicans don’t understand that you can’t have it both ways.

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas does understand that. He has always been a deficit hawk to the extreme, which is why the George W. Bush Administration and their neocon apologists hated him so vehemently in the 2000s. It’s why Paul was treated with great disrespect at the 2012 Republican National Convention last week. Most Republicans, unlike libertarian Paul, love big government; they just don’t like to pay for it.

Romney and Ryan advocate brutal austerity for America’s poor, but that won’t reduce the U.S.’ federal deficit. Making the poor even poorer means that they’re spending even less, which is bad for the economy. And the Romney/Ryan recipe—trashing America’s social safety net (what’s left of it) while spending like crazy and refusing to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans—is an example of very bad math.

No, Romney isn’t really a deficit hawk, although he likes to pretend that he is. And if he wants to see what a real presidential deficit hawk looks like, he needs to study the record of the Democrat who served as president of the United States during most of the 1990s. His name is Bill Clinton.

Alex Henderson is a veteran journalist whose work has appeared in The L.A. Weekly, AlterNet, Billboard, Spin, XBIZ, Creem, Skin Two, The Pasadena Weekly, JazzTimes, Cash Box and a long list of other well-known publications. He can be followed on Twitter @alexvhenderson





Bill Clinton at the 2012 Democratic National Convention on September 5, 2012.