Reply #31: I don't recall her calling him a republican but there are [View All]

[jbnow]

many policies he put forth that any republican would have been proud to. At the time he may not have foreseen the consequences and they seemed like good ideas to him. Repealing the Glass-Steagall Act was something he seemed to think would be very good for banks and the economy in general. His financial team really pushed it, along with Dodd and Schumer, not just republicans.
But those who wrote and passed the act back in 33 look a lot wiser than those who repealed it some 66 years later.

NAFTA might have seemed like it would expand trade. Ooops.
They seemed to think that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 would benefit consumers... instead it led to extreme consolidation with all of those consequences of few certain groups owning much of the media...

Those bills are all ones republican presidents would have been proud to sign, in fact had attempted themselves. There were more he got through that republicans had not been able to. For instance republicans hated the Delaney Clause, a 1958 amendment to an older food bill. It barred the use in food of any chemical additive found to induce cancer in man or found in testing to cause cancer to animals.
Pesticides were removed from the Delaney Clause by an amendment in the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996. Pesticide residue has since been allowed in food. (Actually the ERA decided to allow some in 1988 but that was overturned by the court)

Saying all of this, I like Bill Clinton. That doesn't mean I don't regret a lot of the bills he passed. They were only a part of things that came before and after that were part of the problem but they were certainly a part.

I talk a lot about the good Clinton economy too, especially when talking to republicans. If a republican had been in office during Internet bubble their economy would have looked pretty good too... except they'd probably have given bigger tax cuts to the rich and so on.

I like Obama too but could come up with a list of republican pleasing things about his administration too (such as his economic team...)