JONATHAN COHN MAY 8, 2012
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Here’s an argument I didn’t expect to hear from Mitt Romney: The problem with Barack Obama is that he’s not more like Bill Clinton.
In a speech to college students in Michgan on Tuesday, Romney invoked Clinton’s example and chastised Obama for, supposedly, going back on progress that Clinton and New Democrats had made during the 1990s. From the prepared text:
President Clinton said the era of big government was over. President Obama brought it back with a vengeance. Government at all levels now constitutes 38 percent of the economy, and if Obamacare is installed, it will reach almost 50 percent.
President Clinton made efforts to reform welfare as we knew it. President Obama is trying tirelessly to expand the welfare state to all Americans, with promises of more programs, more benefits, and more spending.
As a fan of big government, at least in some forms, I wish Romney were correct. (Why stop at universal health care? Why not universal pre-K too?) But the record suggests Romney is wrong. As Floyd Norris wrote in the New York Times last Friday, “For the first time in 40 years, the government sector of the American economy has shrunk during the first three years of a presidential administration.”
Over time, government spending will inevitably rise, maybe all the way to 50 percent of the economy. But that’s not really because of Obamacare. It’s because an aging population and rising medical costs are driving up the cost of all entitlement programs, particularly the ones that cover health care costs. The Affordable Care Act will add more people to rolls of these programs and it will raise some revenue to help cover the costs. But the law also calls for a comprehensive effort to reduce health care spending, so that government programs will spend less money over time, resulting in lower deficits.
It’s just as misleading to suggest that Obama is a stereotypical liberal committed to expanding government for its own sake, regardless of efficiency. As my old friend Jonathan Chait keeps pointing out, the Obama Administration is downright obsessive about efficiency—subjecting grants for everything from Head Start to energy research to much greater scrutiny than before. These efforts are a sequel to the “reinventing government” campaign that Clinton and Vice President Al Gore launched in the 1990s.
It’s true that Romney has endorsed plans, like the Paul Ryan budget, that would theoretically reduce government spending more aggressively. But they would do so only by privatizing Medicare and dramatically reducing the financial protection that government health insurance programs now provide—shifting costs over to individuals, many of whom could no longer afford to get basic medical care, and potentially increasing what our society pays for health care overall.
If Romney wants to know what Clinton thinks about that, he should ask Newt Gingrich, who famously battled Clinton over proposals that sought to make the same sort of changes. Or perhaps he should just ask Clinton himself, who recently described the Romney/Ryan agenda as the Gingrich agenda “on steroids.”
Update: Ed Kilgore on the big lies in the Michigan speech and Greg Sargent on Romney’s sudden case of amnesia.
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7 comments
I got tired of guessing whether Romney would govern from the far right or closer to the center. It doesn't matter. Romney would govern based on distortion and fabrication and whereever it comes from, it will be irritating and senseless. He will tell us that the British have learned there are 60 lines of stem cells and that we are fighting them with our underwear so we don't have to wear them here. Romney will land on flight decks all over under signs that say "mission accomplished" and he will dance for us to the tune of why what he said isn't what we thought it obviously meant. He's doing it already.
- Nusholtz
May 8, 2012 at 5:09pm
So, I realize that Romney is currently in the "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" phase of his campaign, testing out themes and messages for the general election--to some extent, Obama's doing the same thing. But this? Really? How does Romney imagine this can do anything but blow up in his face? I mean, it'd be one thing if Clinton were dead, or off contemplating the oneness of everything in some mountaintop retreat. But Bill Clinton is very much alive, and very much still active in politics. He did a spot for Obama just last week, for heaven's sake! All that this line of attack will accomplish is to give the Big Dog a bunch of free airtime, which he will gleefully use to eviscerate Romney. If you're going to try and appropriate some other politician's legacy, you damn well better pick a politician who is a) willing to be appropriated, or b) dead and unable to object. Romney could have gone with Bush the Elder for a), or Ronald Reagan for b). Trying to hijack William Jefferson Clinton was political idiocy.
- Dausuul
May 8, 2012 at 8:48pm
“For the first time in 40 years, the government sector of the American economy has shrunk during the first three years of a presidential administration.” The main reason for this is the near-depression caused by dingbat GOP economic policies that began under Reagan and culminated under G.W. Bush. So that's how the Republicans achieve their dream and downsize government dramatically--they crash the economy. How wickedly clever of them!
- magboy47.
May 9, 2012 at 12:53am
Can't we all just stop paying any attention to Willard "Mitt" Romney? He will not win. I mean, I suppose it's your journalistic duty to dissect all his lies--and for him to suggest that under Obama govt has grown to account for half of GDP is a straight-up lie--but I can't work up much interest in it. It's all so transparent and stoopid, it almost makes me feel sorry for the guy.
- AaronW
May 9, 2012 at 9:11am
Thank you, Mitt, for being everything that is wrong in American politics today.
- GSpinks
May 9, 2012 at 10:00am
I love this GOP fondness for centrist Bill Clinton. One could almost forget that they impeached him.
- dubyadoubte
May 9, 2012 at 10:38am
You make a very good point -- if there's one Democratic politician quite willing and able to express himself, it's Bill Clinton. I look forward to his response on this issue. Meanwhile -- if Romney wins the presidency, it will be disasterous for the country. But even greater -- if Obama wins (as he should) but the House and Senate don't regain a few, preferably a lot of Democratic votes, then we'll continue this "Republican holding America Hostage" situation. That the MSM is taking Romney so seriously, while ignoring how bogus his claims are, is a very bad sign that the country might repeat the mistakes of 2010. Namely by taking Republican claims at face value, while ignoring the truth.
- AllanL5
May 9, 2012 at 12:30pm