The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“CLINTON WRONG ON EIGHTIES” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Commerce was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E102 on Jan. 17, 1995.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
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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