From: monaghan@cac.washington.edu (Tracy Monaghan )
Newsgroups: pnw.general
Subject: Re: Inflation (of fears, not prices)
Date: 10 Nov 92 20:04:17 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Nov10.200417.10805
Distribution: pnw
Organization: UW Computing

In article <1797@rwing.UUCP> pat@rwing.UUCP (Pat Myrto) writes:
>In article <1992Nov9.202253.4846@u.washington.edu> monaghan@cac.washington.edu (Tracy Monaghan ) writes:
>>
>>    [ ... much stuff deleted ...]
>>
>>Perhaps with a line-item veto (which Clinton wants), some form of
>
>Just curious - why is a line-item veto (which Bush also wanted) now
>such a Good Thing, when last year it was such a Bad Thing?  Do the acceptable
>rules change depending on party affiliations?

I'm not sure who referred to it as a Bad Thing.  Personally, I've support
the concept since before 1980.  Last year, a bill was submitted in the
House to provide a 'type' of line item veto.  Gee, maybe some people are
for it and some people are against it.

>
>Seems that much of what I see posted that "Clinton wants" was much of
>what Bush wanted, but was thwarted at almost every turn by partisan
>power plays.  Much of what was yesterday considered Very Bad, is now
>suddenly to be regarded as Very Good.

Who considered *these things* as bad?  This past year, Bush got most of
what he wanted in legislation, but because the bills didn't give 'more of
the store away' to the rich, he'd vetoed them.  Most of what you refer to as
'was very bad' was passed by Congress, and would now be law, had Bush been
able to play the part of a national president and not some partisan leader.

Can you say 'compromise'?

>
>Something doesn't seem to add up here....  Are we going to see gaffes
>which if were done by Bush, would have resulted in a massive outcry,
>suddenly become OK if done by Clinton?

I don't know who you refer to, but Bush (or some in his administration) did
have (IMHO) some good ideas.

Unlike Nixon and Reagan, Bush could not or would not try to work with the
Congress.  Some say 'gridlock' in the govt is good, and Bush is quite
proud of his string of vetos, but I would have appreciated, at least, some
acknowledgement that the economy was not performing well.

Clinton has been saying he's a 'new kind of Democrat' maybe (at least this
one time :) he was telling the truth.
 
>
>The more I see, the more uneasy I become...  Are we going to see a big
>rise in gov't spending (to "jump-start" the economy), because inflation
>is "under control", and the deficit "can wait", and because the revenue
>can be raised by increased "investment" in government (AKA tax increases)?

Not necessarily.  The more I see, the more 'pragmatic' Clinton is shown to be.
I've seen three legislative packages being considered, each different,
depending on the condition of the economy when Clinton takes office.

Clinton's advisers say that 'jump-starting' the ecomony would be balanced
with the time frame it can be enacted.  They know, and here I'm
paraphrasing, that often in the past, good intentions came late, after
the economy began to recover, and those then became inflationary.
They don't want to repeat those mistakes.

The fact that Clinton is organizing an 'domestic economic summit' is (IMHO)
heartening that he won't listen to a bunch of 'yes men' who only say what
he wants to hear.

There were some in Bush's administration (Kemp comes to mind) who had
good ideas, but Bush shut them out.

Maybe partisanship, at both ends of Penn Ave, stopped what would have been
good for the country.  And maybe now some of those good ideas, and some
new ideas, can be enacted.