Was Clinton a Great President?
A friend recently claimed that Clinton was a great president, far above Bush. I highly doubt that Clinton will go down even as an above average president. There is no chance for him to be seen as great. Great Presidents are those who had a major impact on the history of the nation. Washington, is the greatest as he defined what it meant to be President. Lincoln is next for holding the union together thereby defining the national government. FDR is third for the Great Society and the centralization of power in Washington. Closely behind them would be Jackson and Reagan.
The simple fact is that Clinton didn’t do all that much, and much of what he did do was forced on him by a republican Congress. His last few years was marked more by stalemate than anything else. Yes he had a good economy, but it is hard to trace this economy to any particular policy. In fact it was more a result of the emergence of the Internet and the resulting bubble it created. But the bubble burst in March of 2000, and we were sliding toward recession most of his last year in office. Clinton’s main focus was keeping his poll numbers up, and this he did very well.
The most damaging thing for Clinton’s legacy will be his almost complete inaction on the growing threat of terrorisms. Just like the president leading up to the Civil war are faulted for ignoring slavery, until the issue exploded, Presidents before 9/11 will be faulted for ignoring the growing threat of terrorism. This will particularly hit Clinton hard, for he had many attacks, including the first attack on the world trade center. He gave great speeches, but his actions seem aimed more at sweeping the problem under the rug, rather than dealing with it.
In a ranking of Presidents done in October 2000 by the Federalist Society using scholars form across the political spectrum, Clinton ranked #24, Average, just below Martin Van Buren, and just above Calvin Coolidge. That was before 9/11 and the issue of Terrorism became clear, and I suspect was his high water mark in history.
Bush, on the other hand, has the chance, (and it is just a chance) to be a great president. He was faced with a major crisis, he dealt with it. He has fundamentally changed the focus of American Foreign policy into one that actively promotes democracy. On the domestic front he is seeking to transform the society away from dependents on government into one of independence through ownership. It is still too early to say if these policies will be passed or successful, or if the war on Terrorism will succeed. But if they do Bush could easily take a place as one of the near greats if not great Presidents in American History.
As for popularity, all of the Great Presidents, except Washington, were very polarizing during there time, as Bush is now. Great Presidents are marked by change and people do not like change.
Was Iraqi Threat a Fabrication?
Harold Meyers recent claim (Here) that future historians will see Bush as a President who fabricated crises, is a familiar theme for the left these days. The problem with Social Security I have recently discussed. (More on Social Security, Does Social Security Need to be fixed?) The claims on Iraq reveal a marked difference in the way the left and the right view the conflict.
The dispute over the war in Iraq is not an issue of fabrications; it is a fundamental difference in perspective. Many on the left see the fight against terrorism as a police action (at least those who don’t just hate Bush and will just oppose anything he does). Thus the focus on UBL, and “those who attacked us on 9/11.” For Bush, and many on the right including myself, this is not a police action but a global war on terrorism. Thus while we want to get those responsible for 9/11, the war is not limited to those but on the entire threat of global terrorism.
This is a key difference over Iraq, for while the left claim that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 is most likely correct, there is no doubt that Saddam was a major supporter of Terrorism and had been for many years, including attempting to sponsor terrorist attacks in the United States. Thus from a police action perspective, there was little reason to go into Iraq, but for a war on terrorism perspective, there was very good reasons to go into Iraq. It was in fact the most logical next step after Afghanistan. Not war on terrorism could ever be won as long a Saddam was in power.
Frankly I find the left’s view of a police action to be unrealistic and it is just one of the reasons I do not believe that they really grasp the nature of the threat we face. We tried the police action approach for decades, and things only got progressively worst.
We are in a world wide struggle that threaten civilization as we know it, in many respects this is WWIII (or IV if you see the cold war as III as some do). I happen to think we are winning at the moment, but the tides of war can easily change and thus currently the outcome is uncertain. Should we loose in Iraq, it would be a major set back and would very likely result in the loss of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives.
The establishment of a stable democracy in Iraq would be a huge set back for our enemy. The enemy’s strategy all along has been built on the belief that the US is weak, that we are “the weak horse.” UBL has cited examples of Vietnam, Lebanon, and Somalia as example of how they can win if they can just kill enough of our soldiers so that we will cut and run. This is there goal in Iraq kill enough of our soldiers so as build opposition in the US that will force us to pull out. The left opposition and calls for withdrawal only emboldens and encourages this strategy. Sadly many of the left are so focused on their hatred of Bush, that they do not realize or care that their goals are the same as our enemies.
More on Social Security
Social Security is supposed to be retire program, where you “paid in” during your life time and then get your benefits when you retire. Of course the problem is that this is a farce. Social Security is at best simply a welfare program for seniors. At least the calls for taxing the rich to pay for it, reveal it for what it is. People are not getting back what they paid in, they are demanding that others support them.
It is actually little more than a ponzi scheme as it depends on increasing numbers of people entering the system to keep it solvent. As in a ponzi scheme those at the beginning of the program did quite well, but as more and more people enter the system, the strain will increase until the system collapses.
There are basically three ways to address this, cut benefits, increase taxes, or reform the system into a true retirement program. Cutting benefits probably is not an option, at least not unless it is part of some larger grand compromise. The political might of current retirees is just too great. You might be able to cut benefits on future retirees, but even that would be difficult.
Increasing taxes is more likely but still difficult as it suffers from two problems. Liberals often see taxes as an infinite pool of money. However that is not the case. Taxes are a burden on the economy. At some point that burden become so large that further increases actually bring in less money. The recession of the late 60s, mid 70, early 80s, all occurred at peaks when the total tax burden went over 30%. The economic downturn that began in early 2000, coincided with record high total government tax burden on the economy of over 33%. Just how much more taxes the economy will bear is unknown, but taxes are not an infinite pot of money that can be tapped without consequences, and many governments in Europe are finding out.
The other problem is that the shortfall is so great that that taxes required to close it will be massive, it cannot be gotten simply from “the rich” unless the rich are defined as everyone. Ultimately tax increases only delay the problem. After all we have already tried this approach in the 1980s. Faced with the choice of fixing the problem or delaying it by increasing taxes, Congress at the time choose to simply delay it. That is why we are facing the problem we are now. Simply increasing taxes does not fix the underlying structural problem of asking 2 workers to pay enough in taxes to support one retiree.
The best solution is to reform the system into a true retirement system. There is no doubt that such a system can not only work, but work much better than the current system. Democrats like to focus on the cost of the reforming the system, but they ignore the much greater cost of the current system.
Does Social Security Need to be Fixed?
Democrats are saying that there is no problem with Social Security and that Bush proposal is merely and attempt to destroy the system. To some extent the Democrats are correct on the first part. Social Security is not a problem today, however it will be a huge problem in the future. The Wall Street Journal had a chart on in an editorial on Jan 5, 2005 (Article on paid site ) showing the percentage of income taxes revenues it would take to make up for the funding short fall in SS and Medicare. The two programs combined are already paying out more than they bring in. By 2020 both will be in the red and there will be a combined shortfall equal to 28% of income tax revenues. By 2030, it will take over 50% and by 2070 it will take over 100% of income tax revenues. The sooner these problems are addressed, the easier it will be. If they had been address back in the 1980’s the change could have been made with little or no pain. Now we no longer have that luxury. The longer we wait, the more painful and difficult will be the changes.
Frankly I just do not think it is reasonable to ask our children to pay for SS and Medicare when there will only 2 workers for each retiree, plus pay back all the IOU’s from previous generations who raided the SS fund. We can lament about how it should not have been raided, but the simple fact is that it was, and by both parties. Sticking our collective heads in the sand and denying there is a problem is a sure way to make sure the system collapse completely.
As for Bush wanting to destroy Social Security, it would be valid criticism if it were true, unfortunately, like so many liberal criticism, it is based more on their own rhetoric than on reality. The system Bush is proposing is not some pie in the sky theory. It has already been put into practice with great success by Chile. They switched over in the 80s and not only has it worked very well, it worked better than expected. Not only has it given those who switch to the new system more money to retire on, it also allowed them to increase the payments to those who remained on the old system more than expected.
On the other hand, just what is the Democratic plan for Social Security that will allow it to over come the massive shortfalls that are looming? Just how do they expect those that will be working in 2070, which will include the children of today, to pay all of Social Security and Medicate, plus the shortfall which will amount to the total revenues from income taxes in addition to all the other government programs, and still have any money to live on? Just what is the democrat plan? Currently the Democrats are saying there no problem and that we should just ignore it.
Democrats Challenge Election of Bush
The Democrats delaying certification of the election (news story Click Here) just goes to show that some on the far left refuse to accept the reality that they lost.
The Democrats have shown quite a contrast when compared to Republicans. In 1960 Nixon lost a very close election. There was a lot of evidence of fraud and now many historians believe the election was stolen from Nixon in Illinois and Texas. At the time there was a lot of people arguing that Nixon should contest the election, and a New York paper had started a multi-part series on voting problems. Nixon however put the interests of the country ahead of his own personal interests and refused to contest the election. He even called the editor of the paper asking him to cancel the series.
Recently both John Thune and John Ashcroft lost very close elections in which there was a lot of evidence of voting problems. Both put the countries interest ahead of their own and refused to contest.
Kerry at least seems to show the same class in loosing. Sadly such thoughts seem completely foreign other Democrats who seem to want to contest every possible election, with the strategy of changing the rules and recounting as many times as it takes to win, and to hell with anything else.
Such the actions by Democrats in the Senate and House can due little other than to undermine the democratic process of the country, which is always a very dangerous thing to play with. It would be one thing if Democrats had a long record of pushing for stricter controls aimed at preventing fraud, but quite to the contrary they have a long record of resisting almost all such reforms, and have instead pushed for even looser controls that make fraud much easier and more likely. In addition, while republicans certainly have been guilty of fraud in some elections, most of the election fraud over the last several decades has come from democrats.
This would be bad enough during normal times, but at a time of war, such attempts to delegitimize the election can only server to strength our enemies whose main strategy is cause internal opposition within the country. This is why those on the left often receive the label “Useful Idiots” for they often unwittingly advance the objective of our enemies.
