By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources (www.originalsources.com)
February 18, 1999
The economy is good. The Stock Market, which we were told would surely crash if Bill Clinton were impeached, continued strong - in fact, it went up during his Senate Trial.
Then, Friday, after the Senate vote to acquit Bill Clinton, it started down. Yesterday, the Dow was down by 101 points, and the Nasdaq was sharply lower. As the Hong Kong analysis said, "Technology shares, which have led the market higher since October, are providing the same leadership downward. Other sectors of the market - manufacturing shares, for example - have been unable to support the major indexes."
I haven’t heard a soul suggest that perhaps the acquittal of William Jefferson Clinton might possibly affect people’s confidence in the Stock Market. However, this is at least the second time this has happened. Before the House voted to impeach, the White House spin doctors were sounding the alarm that an impeachment would cause stock prices to go down.
It is an interesting commentary on the quality of reporting out of Washington that not a single commentator that I have heard has suggested the perhaps the opposite is true - that acquitting Clinton affected the Stock Market. Why would no one suggest that? Probably because about the only thing that seems to be news is whatever is coming out of the White House and that was not suggested by the White House and probably won’t be.
This morning, as Dow opened higher and the Nasdaq continued to slide, I wouldn’t begin to predict which way it will end the day or the week. However, from the comments made it appears that the "experts" on the market can’t figure it out either. Why is there so much uncertainty in the market? Goodness! Bill Clinton already has a budget surplus based on that good stock market spent! In fact, he outlined how he plans to spend the money for the next 15 years.
Wouldn’t we all now breathe a sigh of relief, now that the Senators acquitted the president of perjury and obstruction of justice, and just go back to business as usual? Isn’t that what the pro-Clinton pundits are expecting us all to do?
Yes - but….most of America knows now that its president lies. And, when you are dealing with a liar, you just have to take EVERYTHING they say with a grain of salt. Most Americans, we are told, don’t think it all that important that Bill Clinton lied to the Grand Jury about sex.
But, how many Americans would buy a used car from Bill Clinton? When it comes to one’s own money, one’s own investments to sent the kids to college how many Americans believe they can trust Bill Clinton?
I suspect it isn’t very many. As I watched the market gyrate during the impeachment hearings and trial, it was very obvious that it was not reacting the way that Clinton supporters had warned that it would. At best one would have to assume that whatever was going on didn’t have a large impact one way or the other.
However, this president has taken credit for every good thing that has happened in this country since he was elected - including the balanced budget which he vetoed twice. He only signed it when it passed with a veto-proof majority.
Let’s go back almost three years and look at what was going on in Congress, that was never reported. At that point the country didn’t HAVE a budget. It was operating on a series of Continuing Resolutions put forward by the Republicans who were trying to squeeze a signature out of Bill Clinton. This is an exchange on the issue that took place between Joe Scarborough a Republican from Florida’s first district and Bill Baker, a Republican from California’s 10th District:
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Mr. Speaker, there has been so much debate over the past 6 months to 1 year over the balanced budget , and the budget battle, and Americans have been so swept away with sort of the currents of the demagoguery that is coming out of the White House and the debate that is going back and forth that we have really lost sight of really what has been happening here.We have been governing by CR, continuing resolutions, where, since we cannot get the President to agree to a balanced budget deal, we go from month to month to month. I have been disappointed that we have not been able to get a balanced budget and wish that we could have moved swifter, wished that we would have had a President that would have signed the first balanced budget plan in a generation. But I found out something very interesting this past week.
What I found out was, even governing by CR, we are ahead of schedule to balancing the budget . We are further along on that 7-year track to balancing the budget than we would have been even if we had passed our 7-year plan last year. And this is great news. On the front page of Investors' Business Daily this morning, had a wonderful quote. The quote said that, while Bill Clinton has been winning the PR battle with the public, the Republicans have been quietly winning the war. This is great news for all of America today.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California [Mr. Baker].
Mr. BAKER of California. It is good news, and I try and keep this fact well hidden, but I am one of the few budget analysts on the floor. For 4 years I worked for the department of finance in the State of California. If I had had a little more personality, I would have become an accountant. But studying these figures, what we found out was we cannot change the way Washington does business. Over two-thirds of our budget is entitlements locked into law. That means an entitlement is when you show up at the window and you say, I would like some money, the Government shells it out. Until you change those laws, either requiring work from welfare recipients or requiring that people be citizens or making these other changes in laws, you are going to have the budget on automatic pilot.
Where we have made the improvements is in the discretionary funds, that small area outside of defense and outside of the entitlement areas where we can change. But there is only so much longer you can squeeze the parts in the other areas of the budget to make them efficient. It would be like asking IBM to get all of their salary savings out of the clerical help and not to do it out of the executives or any of the sales force. So IBM has to have a more balanced view as they try and downsize their corporate structure in order to make themselves profitable.
We in Government have to do the same thing. We have to change the entitlement process to make sure those people who receive a Government check are actually in need. That is what our welfare reform is about, and that is what all of the changes in immigration are about.
And, you know what, the reason why we have such a good economy is because people like Joe Scarborough and Bill Baker were there in the 104th Congress. It’s because of people like Bill Gates and his technological creativity, which created the job I have, for example. And, they created this economy IN SPITE of the active interference of Bill Clinton. The continuing resolutions which everyone at the time, on both sides of the House, thought were so terrible, started the country down the path of a balanced budget. They had a consequence no one noticed at the time, except a few ordinary folks like Joe Scarborough and Bill Baker - but no one in the Washington Press Corps ever thought what THEY were saying was worth reporting to you.
And because people like Joe Scarborough and Bill Baker, under the leadership of a man scorned by the Washington Press Corps, Newt Gingrich, had the courage to stick to their principles, to their goals, they turned around the Tax and Spend policies of Bill Clinton which tried very hard to EXPAND control over the lives of all Americans by socializing medicine. He didn’t succeed because every Republican and enough conservative Democrats in the Congress would not vote for it.
Now we have another interesting factor. What, exactly, will be the affect of having a president in the White House that no one believes?
It could be very bad. On the other hand, it may very well also help the American people realize that the President of the United States is our employee, not our master. The end of the Imperial Presidency begun in 1932 by Franklin Delano Roosevelt may actually be coming to an end because the American people are discovering that it isn’t the PRESIDENT that makes the biggest difference in their lives. It is the CONGRESS that passes, or modifies, the laws.
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com