50 Ways to Pull a Clinton
MOORE, STEPHEN
50 Ways to Pull a Clinton by Stephen Moore Candidate Bill Clinton s rallying cry was that America needed "the courage to change." After four years of George Bush, who could have argued? President...
...This latest tome from the White House underscores why gridlock reigns supreme in Washington...
...It is in fact a stunning defense of the status quo...
...Clinton also proves himself a valiant defender of corporate welfare...
...He says that scaling back price supports would "shred the farm safety net"-and thereby adds a horrific new term to the Washington lexicon...
...Rather, it reduces the growth rate in their cash subsidy...
...We are told, for example, that the GOP budget would "threaten our air, water, and land" (Reason 63...
...For example, Reason 23 tells us that the GOP budget raises taxes on seven million families with incomes below $30,000...
...It is highly revealing that out of a federal budget that spends $1.6 trillion a year, the White House feels compelled to highlight an obscure $3 million grant program that funds leftist women's groups...
...It would mean the demise of the Florida Everglades (Reason 56), the Arctic wildlife preserves (Reason 53), the California desert (Reason 68), the Pacific Northwest salmon (Reason 67), and worst of all, the Tongass rainforest (Reason 66...
...Finally, the show-stopper: The Gingrich-Dole budget would "undercut efforts to head off changes to the earth's weather...
...Yet the largest percentage tax cut in the GOP plan goes to families with incomes between $30,000 and $75,000 a year...
...The GOP budget would allow Medicare costs to grow by nearly 60 percent over seven years...
...Reason 47 announces that the GOP budget would deny access of "schools, communities, and libraries to the information superhighway...
...Clinton makes liberal use of the term "values"-it appears 12 times-in his veto message...
...He says that the GOP balanced budget would "undermine" and "violate our nation's fundamental values...
...Stephen Moore is director of fiscal policy studies at the Cato Institute...
...The per-recipient cost of the program will grow from $4,500 today to $7,100 in 2002...
...he opposes fixing the Earned Income Tax Credit...
...he opposes Medicare savings...
...Reason 50: "eliminates the Women's Educational Equity Act...
...Last week the White House released a 50-page manifesto listing 82 reasons for the president's veto of the GOP balanced budget plan...
...A secret tax hike in the GOP budget...
...There is no cheerleading for change in this document...
...Reason 42: "eliminates Goals 2000," the effort to federalize school standards...
...Here's the difference: A tax is when the government takes your money...
...Honest, I'm not making this stuff up...
...What's this...
...That's "slashing...
...he opposes sending Medicaid in block grants to the states...
...He opposes a capital gains tax cut...
...Some of the objections listed border on absurdity...
...The $12 trillion, seven-year GOP budget proposal is pilloried as containing "extreme and unnecessary" spending cuts...
...Like a balanced budget...
...The report is also crammed with half-truths and untruths...
...Reason 82 attacks the GOP's intention to end the Export Enhancement Program and the Advanced Technology Program-giveaway programs to Fortune 500 companies that cost nearly $500 million each...
...Fact: In the 1980s the Reagan administration cut the Energy Department's budget by half-and oil and home heating prices dropped by 50 percent...
...Meanwhile, Reason 24 states that the tax-cut package "takes from the poor and gives to the wealthy...
...Families making $40,000 a year might be surprised to learn that they are now members of the leisure class...
...Clinton says he's for a budget that provides funding for those federal programs that "elevate American values...
...President Bill Clinton, apparently...
...what the administration is referring to are the proposed cuts in the earned income credit...
...Clinton declares himself against almost every major reform Republicans have proposed...
...he opposes ending welfare as we know it...
...he opposes medical savings accounts...
...Only someone with unshakable faith in big government thinks that federal spending can actually change the weather...
...Like the welfare state...
...This is a budget, remember, that would raise federal spending by roughly $3,000 per household over seven years...
...Now there's a good reason to veto a balanced budget...
...Some of the specific GOP proposals that inspired the president's veto are worthy of mention...
...Reason 49: "abolishes AmeriCorps," Clinton's $7.27 an hour "volunteers...
...Nor is this a president who wants to be an agent of change...
...The underlying message here is unmistakable: This is not a president who's at all serious about reinventing government...
...Then there's Reason 2: "slashes funding for poor, elderly and disabled Medicare beneficiaries...
...One can only imagine the hysteria in the Oval Office if the Republicans had proposed to actually spend less money next year than this...
...But that proposal does not raise taxes on low-income families...
...a subsidy is when you take the taxpayers' money...
...Cuts in the Energy Department would allegedly lead to "less energy conservation and higher energy prices...
...In Reason 80, he objects to proposed reductions in agriculture subsidies that mostly benefit large agribusinesses...
Vol. 1 • December 1995 • No. 15
