Why Bernie Sanders Is Closer To Bill Clinton Than Hillary Is

Wow, that’s a shocker, isn’t it?  Of course I don’t mean in bed; I mean in economic policy..

One of the reasons blacks have such fond memories of the Clintons is because as a group, they benefited during the policy changes of the Bill Clinton Presidency. There was a big difference from where they were before Clinton was elected, to where they were when he turned over the reins of power to his successor.

Today due to the influence of a misguided press, they seem to be mixing fiction with fact in their overwhelming support for Hillary over Bernie Sanders… ( In NY it was split 75/25).  Such is understandable. The explanation of the difference between fact and fiction, is that the Bill Clinton upon leaving office, did not have the same outlook as the one who entered.  Hillary has continued his same line of financial maturity, (most notably after the presidency, when they became wealthy). Whereas, Bernie as a poor Senator is very similar to the young Bill Clinton as a poor governor, both having far greater empathy for the middle and problems of the lower class, than they do or did to the top 1%.

Both the policies of Bill and Bernie were and are aimed at correcting the flaws embedded in the economics of a growing middle class, no matter how hard it hurt the rich.  By contrast, Hillary pays lip service to the middle class’s economic hardships, but her views appear to be compromised and tempered by her connections to the upper 1% who definitely seem to have her ear…..

So let’s compare Bill’s achievements piece by piece?

The economy added almost 23 million jobs under  Bill Clinton’s 8 years.  The GDP grew 35% over the same time. Unemployment hit a 30 year low.

Average hourly wages grew 6%.  Medium average household income grew 14%. The median income of African American families increased by a third and Hispanic families saw their median incomes rise by almost $7,000. Poverty rates dropped to near record lows. And of course the federal budget went from enormous deficits to enormous surpluses,

How was this done?  Basically,…. by getting rid of Reaganomics and establishing “sound” economic policy.

Fundamentally, the middle class is the engine of U.S. economic growth and prosperity.  When it grows; the national economy grows.  When it contracts; our economy contracts.

Bill strengthened the Middle Class by seriously hiking the minimum wage!!!!! 20%. Next, Bill pushed and got the Family Medical Leave Act, which meant that having a baby would no longer cost you your job. This is something we simply take for granted today; it is almost unbelievable to think that firing pregnant moms was the norm prior to that bill’s passage and signature.  Third, establishment of Child Tax Credits, a necessary plank for middle class families still to this day…

Bill Clinton made entering the Middle Class easier for those on the bottom by strengthening the Earned Income Credit, a credit whose amount grew as ones wages grew up to a certain point, offering strong incentive to work more.  Welfare reform up to $3 billion dollars yearly, continued to push people out of poverty and into the middle class.  This included housing vouchers for those working their way out of welfare , as well as business tax breaks for businesses hiring them.

To help young families, more money than every before was directed to Head Start and child care.  The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) was founded to bridge the lower incomes after Medicaid incomes cuts kicked in.  WIC funding increased 45% over his tenure.  Food Snap funding initially got a $3 billion boost, then fell off rapidly as the economy boomed. As well as Federal Housing Assistance growing $9 billion per year enabling many lower middle class owners to realize home ownership for the first time.

Together, these dropped poverty level rates among Blacks from 33% at the time of Bill’s swearing in, to 22% at his swearing out….

As millions of more Americans entered the middle class and as real wages grew, President Clinton also met his goal of spending less on tax breaks for the wealthy and debt services—and giving the middle class more room to spend and grow the economy instead.

And for the first time in 30 years, incomes of the bottom 20 percent of the workforce rose nearly as much as the top 20 percent, and the number of people living in poverty actually declined.

Furthermore, for the first time, Afro Americans had opportunity equal to their white peers.  With equal access to education, and federal money being spent on poorer schools as well, many Afro Americans were equally poised alongside their white counterparts, to engage in middle class opportunities as technology opportunities suddenly blew up with the growth of internet technologies. Suddenly there WERE lots of blacks making lots of money.  Locally, Delaware call centers pretty well hired out all Wilmington to staff their offices.

In the quality of life category, violent crime which peaked just before Bill Clinton came into office, fell significantly over the course of his tenure, and has continued long afterwards.

But all these changes were instigated, and completely made into realization,… by the increase of the top marginal rate on top incomes…

Clinton’s 1993 budget, passed over the vociferous opposition of congressional Republicans, included revenue enhancements focused almost exclusively on those who benefited most from President Reagan’s tax reductions 12 years earlier—large corporations and America’s most affluent earners. These included:

• An increase in the top ordinary income tax rate from 31 percent to 39.6 percent
• Repealing the cap on earnings subject to the Medicare payroll tax
• Increasing the corporate income tax rate for profits above $10 million
• Reducing the deductibility of business meals and entertainment expenses

These “paid for” all the improvements Bill Clinton used to strengthen the Middle Class and then went on to paying down the federal debt, thereby decreasing cost of the portion of debt servicing ….  Had these policies not been overturned by the successor George W. Bush, the entire national debt was on scheduled to have been eliminated by  2009….

By turning the federal budget around, President Clinton accomplished three critical things. First, he reduced federal borrowing as the economy improved, allowing that capital to flow to more productive uses and giving the private sector a needed boost. Second, he allayed the fears of an impending debt crisis, taking that issue off the table. And third, the fiscal improvement allowed the government to focus on the other economic matters listed above—investing in the future, growing the middle class, mitigating poverty, and strengthening Afro-America’s communities.

Undoubtedly President Clinton’s policies are what spurred the economy out of the Reagan doldrums by focusing on the middle class and by making targeted public investments directly in the neighborhoods of Afro-Americans. I just wanted fellow white Americans to first understand WHY black Americans were and still are so loyal to the “Clinton” name…..

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Which brings us now to 2016.  Exactly twenty fours years after that election featuring Ross Perot making a “giant sucking sound”. (Can you believe it’s been that long)….

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If you are Afro American over 35 you probably already know of what I just told you; you lived it. So naturally everyone should see where there should be a lot of loyalty still deserved by the wife of the man who created so much good.

But!

Do you know that the policies now espoused by Hillary Clinton are very similar to those espoused by George W. Bush’s father, George Herbert Walker Bush when he ran against Bill Clinton?  (“Stay the course.”) Do you know that the policies now espoused by Bernie Sanders are much closer to what Bill Clinton ran on in 1992, than are those of his wife today?

The crux of Bill Clinton’s success was his quick passage of the higher taxes on the top one percent.  That allowed a return to the proper balance of wealth and investment to America.  Everyone knows no wealthy person is going to invest in a poverty area. Which is why to eradicate poverty areas, you first need federal investment directly into those people who live in those areas.  When they are no longer living in poverty, that area is no longer a poverty area.  This in a nutshell, is why allowing MORE investment credits to wealthy people with the sole purpose to entice them to invest, is a no-go…   No one willingly loses a million dollars to get a reward of $10,000 extra dollars for doing so.

Which is all that Republican ideas offer.   They merely let the rich keep all their money and do nothing to invest in poor neighborhoods.  But, if you tax the rich so much it tortures them (MAKE IT STOP)!), then say, … no taxes if you invest in South Bridge Wilmington, you actually do get people to invest in South Bridge Wilmington.   Like ShopRite.  🙂   But you have to first have very high taxes to make tax breaks the incentive they once were and again should be…

(If you’ve noticed, incoming corporations now no longer ask for tax breaks for an incentive to move into Delaware; they ask for cash up front.  Tax breaks are no incentive anymore because taxes are way, way, way too low. Lower tax breaks? Pffft. It’s no big deal).

Therefore, you NEED higher tax rates to

a) generate private investment back into the economy

b) fund public sector projects no private investor would sink money into.

c) raise wages.

None of which ever happen when tax rates are too, too, too low on the top 1%. You may wonder how this works?

Higher taxes tax profit… That is all.  They tax all the money that is left over after every other expense has been accounted for… If you have a business and put money back into it to grow your business, it is quite possible you have no profits left over.  If you have no profits, you cannot be taxed on them… Therefore higher marginal tax rates provide the best incentive currently known to mankind, (otherwise known as greed), to convince a business owner to either repair or expand his business.  This action done by all business owners everywhere at the same time, is what we all call “economic growth”…

Now taking the contrary course, that of cutting taxes to spur investment, does not give you more investment.. Instead it makes you buy up what is already there… It is way more profitable to “buy” a bank for example, than start one from the ground up.  You “buy” a bank, fire its president, vice presidents, and officers and replace them with those on your payroll, presto, you’ve already earned profit… which incidentally, will not generate much tax revenue because of  the lower rates which gave you so much money to buy the bank in the first place. Why would anyone invest in something which after 15 years, has a total payoff of 3%…. when they can selectively put that money in stocks and make 8% in 4 weeks?  This explains why we have great gains in our stock markets and very little physical investment in the infrastructure, when taxes are low; and the opposite when tax rates begin climbing…  Ironically the obvious way to spur more physical investment in our economy, is to make “making money” too expensive so you have to “hide” it before it gets taxed…. Higher marginal tax rates do that…

Bill Clinton raised taxes on the top 1% from 31% to 39.6%,  a jump of 8%. The economy took off like a rocket and over the rest of his term we had the best economy ever in America’s history.   Bernie wants to raise rates on our highest income earners from 39.6 to 52%  (12.4%); it would only hit those making more than $10 million a year, and then it is only on those amounts over that $10 million to which this rate will apply…  By contrast, Hillary is stating that she only wants to generate only 3% of what Bernie will….or show an increase of 0.3%…..

This is why Bernie is more like Bill than his wife Hillary.

 

Hillary said she wants minimum wage at $12 dollars by 2020.. Bernie is advocating $15 dollars.  Bill Clinton jumped minimum wage 20%… If one takes the $10 wage already voted on by Delaware’s legislature, her cap would stop it at $12 dollars, roughly a 20% level of increase. Yet Bernie’s takes it up to $15 dollars or a 50% increase over the current $10 dollar amount… something some localities and states have made it into future law already.

So in daring, Bernie is more like Bill than Hillary is.

When it comes to putting through more blacks through college, Bernie is more like Bill than is Hillary.  He advocates tuition-free college for all.

When it comes to health insurance, Bernie is more like Bill than is Hillary.

When it comes to infrastructure investment and jobs, Bernie is more like Bill than is Hillary.

When it comes to caring more for Black children, Bernie is more like Bill than Hillary.

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And it makes perfect sense.  When Bill ran for president he was an governor of a poor state comprised of many blacks, making $35,000 a year.  Except for his free governor’s mansion, he was very middle class.  From 2007 to 2014, the Clinton’s earned $141 million.  It is not hard to understand why they won’t be such strong supporters of the middle class if it comes at the rich’s expense.

Bernie Sanders has a net worth of $300,000.  If he weren’t a Senator, he’d be living on Social Security. That makes him the poorest of all presidential candidates. That makes him so much more like Bill Clinton, than Bill’s wife Hillary is today…

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There is no denying Black loyalty exists for Hillary Clinton. She was beside Bill when all this went down 20 years ago. But, her interests no longer rest as strongly with the black peoples of America, as they once did.  Now, out of necessity, and new friends, she has to balance what is best for poor blacks in our cities, with what is best for her new friends who are very well to do…

If any of you have a spouse that has ever had a mistress or homey on the side, you know exactly what I mean when we are talking about rationing down the amount of attention being given to you.

Bernie is running for a mission: to make all Americans better.  If you are black and American, you are still an American… Under Bernie, your life will get better. Bernie can benefit you faster and better and more like did Bill Clinton, than can his wife…..

Because, Bernie,… actually is a lot more like Bill, than is Hillary.