Legal Commentary

Clinton Reversed GOP Tax Policy, Obama Did Not

By Big Tent Democrat

I have stated many times my view of the importance of tax policy and how it impacts all aspects of government policy (spending regulation enforcement, etc.) Ronald Reagan understood this point, and his most important achievements, from his perspective, came in the area of tax policy. Most Beltway Dems and bloggers are blind to this fact. Including President Obama. A recent National Journal article restated Barack Obama's view of Ronald Reagan as his model of a transformative President:

In the past, Obama has expressed a wary admiration for President Reagan and his ability to change the narrative. In January 2008, early in the Democratic primary season, Obama stunned many of his supporters by praising Reagan as a transformational president during a meeting with the editorial board of Nevada's Reno Gazette-Journal.

That was a contrast to the eight years of President Clinton, Obama added cuttingly. “Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not,” he said.

Yet the president seems somewhat frustrated at his own ability to do something similar. Another recent invitee to the White House in the wake of the midterm election setback was none other than Clinton, who endorsed the tax compromise.

(Emphasis supplied.) Bill Clinton changed the narrative on tax policy and he changed the actual Reagan tax policy - he raised taxes on the rich and lowered them for the working class. And then the economy boomed. From that point on, Dems had something to say on tax policy.

When George W. Bush pushed through his tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, using reconciliation to do it as Reagan and Clinton did as well, he discredited the GOP mantra on taxes because the economy did not respond positively.

In 2008, Obama ran against the Bush tax cuts and in favor of the Clinton tax policies.

But as President, Obama could not, or would not, return tax policy to Democratic principles. Even though all that needed to be done to achieve this was precisely nothing. The Bush tax cuts would have expired at the end of this year.

President Obama blocked this result when he negotiated the Bush/Obama tax cuts with the GOP.

The only transformation on tax policy that Obama has achieved was to have Democrats embrace Reaganomics.

No reasonable person can refer to an Administration that has changed the narrative on tax policy in the way the Obama Administration has as the "most progressive since . . ." Not in my mind.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on December 21, 2010 (boomark / email).