Clinton raised taxes, and it worked, Right?
 

So,
I hear this statement almost every day now.

Love to hear from both sides or everyones views on this.

it worked... how?

the problem is the ultra wealthy, which control some huge chunk of the US money get a tax break while the non wealthy have to pay for govt bs. why? because the wealthy are the ones who get them into office, control most of the businesses and corporations... piss them off, your going to get in a lot of shit.

so instead, gov't spends out of control and then says "ok, everyone needs to now pay it back with your taxes because thats what you do when you are a citizen"

some people bitch and say its their money, but since you choose to live in this country, you have to obey whatever retarded ass rules are in place. the govt can spend your money however they want and however much they want.

how can you change it?
1) because ultra wealthy
2) move

But from what Clinton did, I dont think that "worked" for much of anything IMO

Balanced the Budget right? That is what I keep hearing.

It's interesting what happens when you ditch the spin and just look at the numbers. When Clinton took office, the economy was growing very strongly. Se the graph to see the results of eight years of Clinton policies:
http://bettercgi.com/tmp/clinton_gdp.png

Note the chart ends just before growth slowed greatly in Bush's final two years. If it continued, the line would go flat for the last two years of Bush, then shoot straight down under Obama. The question was about Clinton, though, and it covers the Clinton years nicely.

Many people seem to remember the first part of the graph - things were good at first, then when Clinton's first budget went into affect the economy quickly went down hill. They remember that the economy was hours good Clinton took office in 1993, but they forget that things started going downhill fast by the time Clinton's budget took affect in 1994.

It reminds me of how Clinton signed THREE major internet censorship bills, CDA, CDA II, and COPPA, yet some people in the adult industry had decided they liked Clinton couldn't admit to themselves that he was coming after them like no president before or since. Clinton signs unconstitutional censorship bills three times but they have to keep believing it's the republicans they should be afraid of, because that's what the guy on Comedy Central said.

Same with civil rights. The KKK was formed to keep democrats in office since they had always opposed civil rights. They opposed the civil rights act of 1864, with the republicans passing it anyway. The Democrats FILIBUSTERED the republican sponsored civil rights act of 1964. Later the democrats elected an officer of the KKK as their leader in the senate. Byrd's first elected position was as leader of the KK and for 51 years the democrats kept electing him. Yet to heart some tell it, it the republicans that are racists. Hire the hell do they pull that off? They try to keep blacks as slaves while the republicans free the slaves . The democrats fight for segregation while the republicans equal rights. Then they claim it's the other guys who are racist and so many people actually believe them?

I don't know how people are tricked into believing such silliness, but the facts on Clinton ans they economy are clear. That chart makes it obvious to anyone who wants to know what's real instead of believing whatever some comedian tells them to. The clear fact is that Clinton took a great economy and ruined it.

Funny how the graph end at 2005/2006, just before the shit storm started of the mess were in now

The graph was made in 2007 to help me decide who to support in 2008. I had certain beliefs, but I wanted to check them against the actual facts. I was suprised how the graph turned out and I leaned something from it.

The graph for the last five years doesn't look the way you might wish, though. The last couple years of Bush saw unusually slow growth, with unemployment rising to around 5%. The economy was growing slowly, but it was growing. Under Obama, unemployment nearly doubled to around 10%, compared to 5% under Bush. The economy grew slowly for Bush's last two years, then SHRANK significantly under Obama. So if you use any major indicators to make Bush look bad, you'll also show that Obama is two to three times as bad.

Another example is deficit spending, putting the tax payers in debt. You can show that Bush was bad because he overspent by $400 billion / year, but then you're stuck with the fact that Obama overspent by $1200 billion / year, three times as bad as Bush.

If you support Obama you don't want to bring out any numbers, but rather stick to emotions and slogans like "hope". (or consider the evidence and possibly decide to support someone else who has gotten good results during their career.)

Thanks Raymor.. Is there anyway to get a Current graph, or did you make that?

Republicans are all about equal rights.

Look at they way they've ushered in equality for gay people.

15%+ of the population is gay. Curious the population % of black people when they were freed from slavery.

Was this growth fueled by borrowing?

And. Why didn't the growth keep going?

http://bettercgi.com/tmp/clinton_gdp.png

Look closer at it. Since the GHW Bush Presidency the highs have rarely got above the previous lows. And that's the real problem. Turning it into a blame game for different parties is the way children react and nothing gets fixed.

The trend, under what ever President or party rules, has been down.

Now put up a trend on Government spending.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...near_graph.png

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3bGnkNeoPx...ding-Graph.PNG

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/..._g_g_g_g_g_g_g

See the problem?

And it's not just the US, it's most of the Western World.

Would love to see where you got those numbers from because no matter where I look I don't see anything like that. All the various data from this page would tend to say that that chart is wrong. Or at least that the straight lines drawn on it are intended to mislead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationa...idential_terms

Or you could fool around with the data on this page

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/unit...tes/gdp-growth

Or here's another one.

http://www.fin.gc.ca/ec2008/images/ecc1_5-eng.gif

Or here's a chart by president as well... I've seen this same sort of data presented in a variety of places and the results have all been pretty consistent.

http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_new...h-by-president

There's also a lot of charts like these out there that all tend to show the same thing.

http://www.presimetrics.com/blog/?p=34

They use GDP per capita as opposed to just GDP as it's more an indication of just how well off "everyone" is as opposed to just saying what the economy is doing.. i.e. if the US had a billion people living in the country with the same economy, everyone would be a hell of a lot worse off than they are now.

Interesting take. Not to let facts get in the way of reality but as I recall during the evil Clinton years a few other phenomena occured:

The USD was strong on the world market and rising. (after only 3 years of Bush it nosedived to what it is now of course)
Inflation wasn't out of control
Unemployment was at a tolerable level
Your budget was about as "far more balanced than it is now" as it gets. (Bush set the spending trend you're on now, Obammer is just taking it to greater levels)


No comedian told me any of that, I lived through it. Yes I am Canadian, but a large part of my income came and still does come in the form of US currency from US sources for over 13 years now, well into the Clinton years. So call me crazy but I took an interest.

One thing ol' Clinton seemed to understand was that the bills have to be paid. Who's going to be paying your current ones? And before you start knocking the Obammer tell me, what would McCain have done different spending-wise had he been the one elected?

Now I command you to argue with me.

I understand what people remember and then hard numbers are different for different reasons.
Lots and lots of my friends loved the times before 2008, so "EASY" to get a house, decent interest rates. Then, bang...

Where did that chart come from? The Twilight Zone?

I wanted an unbiased representation, so without knowing the numbers I decided economic growth was the best indicator. I then looked up the economic growth numbers and ran the graph myself so I wouldn't be influenced by someone trying to make a graph that looked a certain way.

I had planned to see if the numbers were better under some presidents or parties than others. What I learned was that the direction of the numbers was more interesting. Bush II was the first republican to have the line go down - to leave the economy worse off than when he started.

I haven't made a fresh graph, but I have looked at the numbers so I know what it looks like. The line goes flat at the end of Bush, representing little growth, then free falls below zero under Obama.

I see.
One thing I hate is how numbers can be twisted and turned.
Or one side will step in and say well those numbers were high because of this or low because of this.

Like I noticed the left keeps saying Bushes wars. Well Obama is still in the same wars, and shooting in several other countries. Yes, he pulled troops from Iraq, but that was also the plan already in place. Someone also said, Obama is just doing the war on terror that bush started. Now I would think a president should be able to do what he wants, ha.
Anyway that is all off topic, I am just seeing what the answers would be to the
topic of raising taxes.

Bump for weekend peeps

and ran the graph myself ... maybe you should have stated that in your original post ... you know ....