[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 9 (Tuesday, January 17, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E102]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                       CLINTON WRONG ON EIGHTIES

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                            HON. BILL BAKER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, January 17, 1995
  Mr. BAKER of California. Mr. Speaker, it has become fashionable in 
some quarters, including the White House, to dismiss the 1980's as a 
time of greed and venality, in which the rich exploited the poor and 
the Federal Government's deficits went wild due to the economic 
policies of the Reagan administration.
  In today's edition of my hometown paper, the Contra Costa Times we 
read a lucid, compelling refutation of the President's misguided 
perspective. As the editorial in the Times notes, the eighties were a 
time of unprecedented economic growth. New jobs, rising wages and lower 
inflation followed the Reagan program. Yes, deficits grew--because a 
Congress without fiscal discipline spent without restraint.
  I am including this outstanding editorial in the Congressional Record 
because it is a needed corrective to the relentless stream of 
misinformation we hear all too often about the Reagan era. I hope that 
many of my colleagues will take the time to read it.
 Clinton Wrong On 1980's--President Should Focus on Problems of 1990's

       President Bill Clinton made a major mistake when he claimed 
     that Republicans had disavowed Reaganomics and that Congress 
     made a mistake in 1981 ``to adopt a bidding war in the tax 
     cuts that gave us what became known as ``trickle-down 
     economics' and quadrupled the national debt.''
       Republican leaders were quick to point out that they never 
     attacked Reagan's policies and that Clinton was dead wrong 
     about the cause of the deficit.
       The president's remarks are hardly a way to begin a 
     bipartisan effort to control federal spending and bring about 
     needed reforms in government programs.
       Equally disturbing is the view Clinton and many others in 
     positions of power have of the 1980s.
       Reagan's tax policies, which received wide bipartisan 
     support at the time, can hardly be blamed for mounting 
     deficits. Even though tax rates were reduced, government 
     revenues grew dramatically, nearly doubling in the 1980s.
       As a percentage of gross domestic product, tax revenues 
     remained nearly constant. What grew during the 1980s was 
     government spending.
       Clinton also was wrong in saying that under Reagan the poor 
     got poorer while the rich got richer. That's only half true. 
     Wealthy people indeed gained economically in the 1980s, but 
     so did the poor and middle classes.
       According to the Department of Commerce, even the poorest 
     one-fifth of Americans gained income in inflation-adjusted 
     dollars in the 1980s, as did every other major income 
     grouping.
       More than 19 million jobs were created in the 1980s, 
     unemployment dropped by one-fourth, inflation dropped by two-
     thirds, and the country enjoyed a prolonged economic 
     expansion. That's a record Republicans are not about to back 
     away from.
       It's time for Clinton to stop campaigning against the 1980s 
     and work together with the GOP to correct the problems of the 
     1990s.
     

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