Would Romney Be Another Bill Clinton or Another George W. Bush?

Bruce Bartlett held senior policy roles in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and served on the staffs of Representatives Jack Kemp and Ron Paul. He is the author of “The Benefit and the Burden: Tax Reform – Why We Need It and What It Will Take.”

Mitt Romney has lately been praising Bill Clinton’s economic policy, The New York Times has reported.

Perspectives from expert contributors.

This is a bit surprising, as Mr. Clinton is a Democrat who was widely loathed by Republicans like Mr. Romney when he was in office. Moreover, Mr. Romney seldom mentions the last president of his own party, George W. Bush, often referring to him merely as Barack Obama’s “predecessor.”

From a nonpartisan point of view, this is not surprising. Mr. Clinton consistently governed as a fiscal conservative and Mr. Bush as a liberal. However, Mr. Clinton was not a conservative by today’s standards, but rather by those of an earlier generation.

That is to say, he actually cared about the budget deficit and was willing to raise taxes to reduce it – as Ronald Reagan did 11 times, and George H.W. Bush courageously did even though he knew it would probably cost him re-election.

Today’s conservatives oppose tax increases so strenuously that many were willing to default on the nation’s debt last summer rather than raise taxes by a single penny.

They overwhelmingly believe in a nonsensical theory called “starve the beast,” which asserts that tax cuts automatically reduce spending and tax increases never reduce the deficit because they invariably lead to spending increases.

The Clinton and Bush 43 administrations are almost perfect tests of starve-the-beast theory; the former raised taxes in 1993, while the latter signed into law seven different major tax cuts, according to a Treasury study. If there were any truth whatsoever to starving the beast, we should have seen a rise in spending during the Clinton years and a fall in spending during the Bush years. In fact, we had exactly the opposite results.

Congressional Budget Office

Spending fell 3.2 percent of the gross domestic product under Mr. Clinton and increased 2.4 percent under Mr. Bush, even though taxes rose 3.1 percent of G.D.P. under the former and fell 2 percent under the latter. As a consequence, the national debt fell almost 15 percent of G.D.P. under Mr. Clinton and rose almost 8 percent under Mr. Bush.

But what about the economy? Republicans almost obsessively refer to all tax increases as job-killers. They commonly assert that tax increases would crush the economy and investment. Conversely, they assert that tax cuts are always what the economy needs to raise growth and create jobs.

This is why Mr. Romney; Paul D. Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee; and every other Republican leader say that we must cut taxes, especially for the rich, even as spending for the poor is slashed in the name of fiscal responsibility.

But the record does not support the idea that tax cuts necessarily foster jobs or growth. (I think the Reagan tax cuts worked, because economic conditions were far different than today.)

Bureau of Economic Analysis, Bureau of Labor Statistics

As one can see, contrary to Republican dogma, tax increases did not kill jobs during the Clinton administration. In fact, 23 million jobs were created, compared with one-fourth that number under Mr. Bush. The key reason for this is that real G.D.P. grew twice as fast during the Clinton years as it did during the Bush years: 3.9 percent per year on average compared with 2 percent.

A major factor powering the higher real growth is that nonresidential investment rose sharply during the Clinton presidency but was flat throughout the Bush presidency.

I think Americans are more aware of these facts than Republicans believe. That is why they have consistently blamed Mr. Bush far more than President Obama for the poor state of the economy, as documented in these New York Times/CBS News polls.

Who do you think is mostly to blame for the current state of the nation’s economy?

1. The Bush administration
2. The Obama administration
3. Wall Street and financial institutions
4. Congress
5. Someone else

The New York Times/CBS News polls

Even more surprising is that three-fourths of the way through President Obama’s administration, three times as many people primarily blame Mr. Bush as blame Mr. Obama for the budget deficit, according to the New York Times/CBS News poll.

Who do you think is mostly to blame for most of the current federal budget deficit?

1. The Bush administration
2. The Obama administration
3. Congress
4. Someone else

The New York Times/CBS News polls

No wonder Mr. Romney would rather identify himself with Mr. Clinton than the last president of his own party.

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Rick Santorum Another Republican Out of Touch with Reality (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum may be the newest flavor in the Republican of the Month contest after Iowa voters finally got to weigh in their votes on Tuesday, finishing just eight votes behind Mitt Romney, but one thing is certain: Santorum is clearly out of touch with reality with the majority of Americans, including the dire state of the economy, health care and employment.

The former senator apparently is so out of touch that he apparently believes African-Americans are the only citizens on welfare in our country.

According to the New York Daily News, while Santorum was at an Iowa campaign stop on Sunday, January 1, he told his supporters, "I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money."

As you can imagine, the NAACP is up in arms about his remark, and as well they should be. We all should be. Santorum hasn't apologized for the remark. He's decided to go another route and deny he made the comment at all, but he can clearly be heard on a CNN video making the controversial statement.

Not only is it an unfair stereotype, it isn't even accurate by a long shot. Federal benefits are not determined by race, but by income. In Iowa, only nine percent of welfare recipients are black. 84 percent are white.

Santorum also goes on during his speech Sunday to explain why four in ten children of Iowa are on Medicaid. It isn't because they need health care. The former Senator says it's because President Obama wants their vote. Somehow I think that's a pretty far stretch from the truth. If you ask parents of these children if they signed their children up for Medicaid for any other reason assure they have access to healthcare, they would likely find his statement laughable.

Does Santorum and the other GOP candidates realize the U.S. is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not have a universal health care system? The reason that many children as well as adults do not have health care insurance is because their employment benefits ended after a job loss or change and many employers do not offer benefits at all. To say that Obama wants to provide health care for children just because he wants the vote, is a sad attack on the truth.

Santorum will likely dive to the bottom of the GOP candidate pool soon enough, and there should be an outcry against not only his racially prejudiced comments, but his unrealistic view of American society.

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Is Newt Gingrich the Man to Beat or Just Another Flavor of the Week? (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | The 2012 cycle to find the next GOP nominee for the presidency has resulted in a seemingly endless parade of front-running hopefuls backed by conservatives from the "Anybody but Mitt" Romney crowd. Now it looks like the next golden ticket is a candidate we thought had been dispensed, after irregularities in his charity's financial practices and a major shakeup in his campaign staff, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

But is Gingrich the real deal for Republicans? Or just another flavor of the week, hoping to unseat the party's "steady-as-she-goes" candidate, Romney?

According to the Huffington Post, people who served with Gingrich in Congress in 1994 think he can win the nomination, and so do I.

Gingrich is regarded by many, including Congressman Barney Frank, D-Mass., as a man "without a moral core," but that seems like a match made in heaven for a party whose morality doesn't sink in beyond the crust.

Having led at a national level, Gingrich, who has been in politics for most of his life, was regarded early in the race as a Washington establishment sort, representing the values of old Washington. But for many Republicans prone to nostalgia, that's not such a bad thing. In fact, life was pretty good for a number of years as a result of the deals forged between the president and Congress elected in 1994.

Democrats might regard Bill Clinton as the hero of that era, but Republicans will no doubt stand by their man Gingrich, who in the darkest days of budget negotiations, when the government had shut down, held the president in check and worked to negotiate a deal instead of political clout.

Gingrich is a different sort of candidate. He doesn't badmouth his fellow Republicans. He seems to rise above the fray, choosing to sell his ideas as valuable and acting as if his opponents aren't enemies but friends. The result is that instead of looking like a boxer, Gingrich comes off like a priest, as if he's not trying to beat anyone but just trying to help his country.

Some are settled and will never believe him, but at least for the moment, Gingrich is running the most market-friendly campaign in the race.

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