Hillary on the Economy
Hillary Clinton, ‘liberal’:
Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton outlined a broad economic vision Tuesday, saying it’s time to replace an “on your own” society with one based on shared responsibility and prosperity.
The Democratic senator said what the Bush administration touts as an ownership society really is an “on your own” society that has widened the gap between rich and poor.
“I prefer a ‘we’re all in it together’ society,” she said. “I believe our government can once again work for all Americans. It can promote the great American tradition of opportunity for all and special privileges for none.”
That means pairing growth with fairness, she said, to ensure that the middle-class succeeds in the global economy, not just corporate CEOs.
“There is no greater force for economic growth than free markets. But markets work best with rules that promote our values, protect our workers and give all people a chance to succeed,” she said. “Fairness doesn’t just happen. It requires the right government policies.”
She also said: “We have sent a message to our young people that if you don’t go to college … that you’re thought less of in America. We have to stop this.”
What? Please tell me I interpret this statement completely wrongly. It is wrong to demand of the youth that they go to college? Or at least expect them to do so? Since when? Western economies are increasingly knowledge economies. This means that education is of the utmost importance. This, in turn, means that society must believe in education. This, in turn, means that society must praise those who go to college, and consider it a shame when people do not (go to college). Not because it is ‘wrong’ not to go to college, but because society as a whole benefits from being highly educated.
More:
Clinton also said she would help people save more money by expanding and simplifying the earned income tax credit; create new jobs by pursuing energy independence; and ensure that every American has affordable health insurance.Beyond education, Clinton said she would reduce special breaks for corporations, eliminate tax incentives for companies that ship jobs overseas and open up CEO pay to greater public scrutiny.
Ed Morrissey comments:
A lot of nations have tried “all in it together” economic policies over the last century. Some used “government policies” to force all economic activity under government management, and places like the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites all collapsed. Others, such as France, have belatedly discovered that collectivism results in economic stagnation and an entitlement mentality that deflates the will to innovate and invest.
I agree with Ed on this: it always worries me to no end when politicians start using this kind of rhetoric. The middle class could do with a little less protection as far as I am concerned. If you want to lower taxes, great, I applaud you for it, do it by spending less. Sadly, Hillary’s plans will cost the taxpayer more. This means that she will have to get the money from somewhere, somewhere being those who earn more than the average person does.
Punishing people for earning a lot: always a great way to destroy the economy.
It never fails.
Cross posted at my own blog.
43 Responses to “Hillary on the Economy”
People forget that in the personal world of Senator Clinton, having your children attend a state university means that those children are losers, that having your children attend a directional state university means that you are a failure as a parent, and that sending your children to community college is the equivalent of child abuse.
Senator Clinton’s words would mean a little more if most of the children of her biggest supporters were not either in law school, screen writers, or interns at Vanity Fair. The last thing that anyone who attend Sidwell Friends, the Dalton School, or Andover wants to do is try to make a living in the knowledge based, high tech economy. They would much prefer to produce plays, mangement not-for-profits, or write movie scripts. The elite in this country leave it to others to do the hard work of moving the economy forward.
It is wrong to expect the youth to go to college when the price of college is skyrocketing year after year. College has never been cheap but now it is downright obscene at many universities. Then it’s the amount of time you have to spend at a college/university in order to obtain a degree. I’m a firm believer of the fast track. Eliminate the “fluff” and get to the meat of your major. Not saying that liberal arts is bad. But it takes up to much time and money in earning a degree. Go ahead “well-rounded student” purists, slap me.
I’m so sick of analogies with the Soviet Union and Hilary being compared to Marx and Lenin when any talk of economic fairness or social programs come up. This is a strawman argument. The Soviet Union was a totalitarian state. Neither Hillary nor anyone else wants to eliminate our free market system and replace it with a state controlled economy. But there needs to be some kind of safety net. I’m sorry, but no one should be allowed to die because they can’t afford medical insurance for example. I certainly have no problem with eliminating tax incentives for companies that ship jobs overseas, and I think CEO salaries are obscene. I guess that makes me a communist.
LOL MvdG – With terror threats and all in Holland, whats with the “De Grote Donor Show”(“Big Donor Show”)? I don’t think the ME TV staions like al Jezera could stoop so low.
I guess this means “it takes a village to manage your checkbook”!
I’m all for the elimination of government subsidies of private enterprise, but that’s about where Hill and I part company.
I’m glad though that the Dems are now having to trot out domestic policy…….as Paul Harvey would say…….and now for the rest of the story.
lol Rudi: want to know more about that? I can write a post about it.
Yes Just heard about this on cable news. And the radical Muslims are evil? Using a dieing woman and organ recipients for a tasteless TV show. What will MEMRI have to say?
What I found disturbing about Hillary’s comments was not that she might lead us towards some totalitarian, state-run nightmare, but rather I don’t know where she’d lead us. The majority of her comments were content-free platitudes of the “I like jello” type. Everyone wants “not just CEOs” to succeed. Everyone wishes we had a better and broader and more affordable health-care system. Everyone dreams of energy independence and more jobs. Etc. Etc. Etc. Saying she is for these things isn’t laying out a domestic policy agenda. The devil is always in the details. Who is going to pay for these programs? What technologies can seriously put a dent in oil dependence and what side effects would they have? How would she resolve tradeoffs between “shared responsibility” and individual liberties?
And the most important question I draw from her personal history is, “How would she deal with disagreement and dissent?” That question is a precursor to all other questions about how a President Hillary Clinton would govern.
MvdG – Here is a couple links to the show. This news source has a screen capture from the show.
http://www.rte.ie/arts/2007/0529/thebigdonorshow.html
http://dynimg.rte.ie/0000e1c210dr.jpg
The use of a kidney to replace the “O” in show is hilarious.
………………………omg.
i’m in shock right about now.
hi laura
This is discouraging, after all the heartfelt exchanges about how to debate reasonably.
To expect every youth to attend college is, IMO, a bit ot ‘let hem eat cake’ attitude. Aside from the enormous financial difficulties, not everyone is equipped for higher learning. That worked fine when there were good paying jobs in manugacturing to enable living comfortably.
The alternate jobs are disappearing, however, and the stigma of ‘failure’ is increasing.
There is the implication that if someone can’t get a first rate educaion and land a high salary job, there is something fundamentally ‘wrong’ with the person. His personal responsibiliy score must be way off, it is implied.
BTW,SuperD, Hillary’s personal life or that of her firiends has nothing to do with evaluating her proposals. I don’t expect the doctor I consult to be sick with the disease he diagnosis.
I don’t know yet, if her plan is the best solution. But I applaud her for addressing a serious problem we have.
Hi Chuck
And the most important question I draw from her personal history is, “How would she deal with disagreement and dissent?â€
………………………
I’m not sure what you are implying here Jason. You think she would pull a Hugo Chavez?
Our government should run SOME things completely. I’m in favor of the Department of Education being the manager of all of America’s K – 12 schools. This management means that all public schools would have the SAME level education and access to FEDERAL resources (can’t stand the property tax way of funding school). All of this micro-level of school management doesn’t get us nowhere fast. The local high school should be called, for example Mason High School with the tagline “A U.S. Department of Education Institution”. Yes there are some “devilish details” to worked out but I feel it would benefit America greatly to give ALL children to SAME start. Now what they do afterwards is on them.
Jason Steck speaks the truth on this topic.
doma,
Don’t let sds’ ingratiating style put you off. He’s just TMV’s version of Ron Paul..lol!
However, I think your analogy is a bit off. A more onpoint analogy would be “what if your doctor said to you take medication A, however, you find out from the nurse that the doctor uses medication B.”
That’s more apt……if the Clintons refused to send Chelsea to public schools, why should we buy their argument?
T-Steel the system you describe already exists, at least it does in Spain. We don’t “major” and “minor” in anything; a student enters the “carrera” in a specific field. If you’re going to be a biologist, you enter biology the first year, and the vast majority of the next 5 years is spent studying your subject matter. We do have free credits, but most students (both out of preference and scheduling issues) use most of them to “round out” their specific training (a biochemist might take a medical course, for instance). The result is graduates ready to enter the workplace inmediately. Masters are not considered utterly necesary and grad “students” (of which I am one) spend 4 years working and publishing, as the bulk of their coursework is over.
Of course there’s the detail that higher education carries a pretty much symbolic cost, my final year in college cost me a whopping 1,200€ at the best university in the country. Bunch of disgusting commies we are, eh?
Speaking of which, Michael, does the Netherlands have an American style higher education, complete with a decade long debt at the end?
Laura, I agree with you entirely, which makes me wonder if you might be a different Laura than the one I’m used to LOL
domajot,
What Senator Clinton, Senator Obama, or Mr. Giuliani do in their personal lives tells you exactly what they really believe. If Senator Clinton believes that people can be successful without an Ivy League education then why did she spends $100,000′s to send her daughter to Sidwell Friends, Stanford, and Oxford. I guess the University of Arkansas just was not good enough.
If the Clinton’s really believe we were in it together then why didn’t they send their daughter to public schools in DC?
Senator Clinton does not really believe what she is saying but instead believes will read into what they want to her. Rich white kids at elite universities see themselves as the deciders for what is fair and who is going their share. However, they do not plan on having to live within the guidelines of the government The poor, minorities, and other groups will read into it that the government is going to give them more goodies paid for by rich (read whites in the minority community).
The unions see it as a way to make more demands on the private sector and the government employees union see it as more jobs in the countless administrations that will have to be established to determine what is fair and what is right.
In the end, it is standard boilerplate Democratic language.
Casual -
It doesn’t matter to me which medicine the doctor takes as long as he is knowledgeable about both and choose the right one for me.
It’s the prescription, not the doctor that matters. One of the best doctors I’ve had in terms of good diagnosis and treatment had the personality and bedside manner of a hedgehog. His advice was excellent, even though I had to grit my teeth when listening to him.
superd,
I think that community colleges are a great choice for many students, especially those headed into the undervalued trades instead of an abstract liberal arts track. My wife teaches at a CC, in fact, and is rather militant on the point that community colleges should be given greater respect among students and guidance counselors. Nonetheless, in our personal lives, neither of us got any of our degrees from community colleges. Does this mean that we don’t really mean what we are saying when we agree with Sen. Clinton’s arguments that liberal arts colleges should not be the end-all, be-all of societal status?
Actually there ae lots of good jobs in America for people without college educations: plumber, electrician, carpenter, stone mason. I would be perfectly happy if my children chose any of those careers. In my neighborhood there is a great auto repair shop owned by a Korean-American kid who can’t be over 25. There is no reason why everybody should go to college, and many good reasons to make different kinds of training available for people with different interests and ambitions. Hillary was dead right about this one.
Haha this analysis was right on. On a side note, I think Obama is slightly in the same boat even though his focus is entirely different. Edwards/Clinton talk about these things and it’s obvious they are looking at it from the top-down. Obama bases his view on community organizing and bottom-up. Ideally government policy from him should primarily be to encourage and incorporate bottom-up ideas. (For instance, part of his plan to better primary schools is to have competitive funding where local districts apply for grants to do something transformative….and the results that work the best are then suppossed to be migrated to other districts.)
Now for Obama the questions are: can he keep the bottom-up view on the federal level and get elected; will it even work on the federal level; will he be patient enough to let it work (which would take decades) or feel too much pressure to create one size fits all?
I agree that not everyone can or should go to college, but I still think the way Hillary is phrasing this is wrong. It reminds me of the political correctness of multiculturalism, where instead of just saying that we should have respect for minorities the concept is twisted to the point that we’re supposed to feel apologetic if we’re white or part of the majority. A college education should still garner respect because it means that learning is valued and that the person and his/her family made sacrifices in order to earn a degree. We can give college grads that respect without being disrespectful of those who make other choices.
CS, well said, you have my vote……what office do you want to run for?
Jason,
Would you feel the same community colleges if you did not have a financial stake in them. The problem with Senators Clinton and Obama is that they do not walk the walk when it comes to education. They fill their operational staffs with Ivy leaguers who all went to prep schools because they perceive them as being smarter and better. But they fill their administrative staffs with the idiot children of donors.
My guess is that in a possible Obama Administration that every high level appointee who is white will be an Ivy League (or similar type) and that only the minority appointments will have any public university graduates among them. The same will probably occur in a possible Clinton Administration but the minoritiy appointees will also be Ivy Leaguers.
Hah, thanks but no thanks, casualobserver.
Is that really true? I’m pretty sure our Republican friends (like Mitt Romney who thinks that every thing is A-OK in America) have long opposed any change to our health care system. It’s the best in the world damnit!
superdestroyer, I think it is entirely depedent on what the person is doing. aristeas pointed out that for a lot of trades college isn’t necessary. I don’t care if my plumber has any college degree. Community/tech schools are really good for some other jobs, what comes to my mind based on what my friends have done are welding, financial consultant, IT administrator, etc.
But for jobs that creating and evaluate intellectual goods, universities produce much better people than trade schools, and the top tier are much better than everyone else (a lot of this could be self selection bias as well). I would be fine with a government administrator being from a CC, but on average most of the policy creators should be from the best schools. [I do have a caveat which is that I think a lot of problems are caused because all the policy people come from the same background and think the same way. Intelligent people from all backgrounds need to work as "checks" to keep people honest with different modes of thinking. In my theoretical administration, 90% of the policy creators would be from the traditional places, but 10% would be vastly different and each have their own niche. Often times I'd care most about those 10% checking off on an idea.]
Uh, Chris, you may have missed the memo: one of Mitt Romney’s accomplishments was instituting a plan for universal health care coverage in Massachusetts.
I agree that the trades would be a better choice for many, but plumbers and electiicians can’t take up the slack left by disappearing manufacturing and other jobs. Being assistant/trainee to licensed tradesmen in these areas used to pay fairly well, but those positions are increasingly filled by illegal immigrants, and salaries are decreasing (at least that’s what I see locally).
It’s a double squeeze. An out of reach college education on one side and decreasing alternate jobs on the other.
It’s too bad these issues are being discussed piecemeal: one day it’s healthcare, the next jobs, and the next educaion.
It looks to me like all of these things are tied together, and they paint a picture of a society where upward mobility has less and less influence.
This should concern the rich as well. They want the country to look the same and to function the same as it has in the past. That will become increasingly less likely if the country stagnates into a fairly rigid class system.
These problems should rifhtfully be seen as problems for all of us, not just those holding the short end of the stick. Prevention usually costs a lot less than curing a disease.
C Stanley,
Mitt did a lot of great things as Gov. that he has now turned his rhetorical back on.
He’s making Kerry and Bush seem almost stubborn.
Not entirely off-topic, but…….
anyone else taking notice how the Clinton camp is playing to, or off, the timing of Obama?
She withheld her Iraq vote disclosure up to within minutes of Obama
Now, Obama makes some disclosure on healthcare and Clinton is now shifting to sweeping domestic policy disclosures.
Coincidence?
Just as interesting to me is that Ms. Hillary has seemed to try to stay slightly right of Obama on foreign policy and now this would indicate trying to go left of him on domestic.
Carville and Begala must be knee-deep in political triangulation calcs.
domajot,
it’s difficult to make anyone look past their immediate future and security, let alone people as comfortable as the upper-crust of our society.
The truth is, people like Hillary and the rest of our ruling elite see society through the gates of their community and private schools. You can’t expect them to be concerned about public schools or declining quality of public services or health care.
These people have enough money to be insulated from the rest of society and I fear it’s going to have to get a lot worse for the rest of us, before it gets any better.
I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in for this question…for some reason I believe she’d try to pull that kind of stuff…I believe she is on a quest for power and will do what it takes to fill that apatite…but then again anyone in a position of power would try to do the same thing if given the opportunity, IMHO.
Chris,
I’m not a Hillary fan. At this point, I’m no existing candidate’s fan, and will probably ‘settle’ at the last minute.
But I don’t agree that the rich are incapable of providing good ideas for the poor, or the healthy can’t provide good cures for the sick. The poor and sick are just as capable of being corrupt, self-serving and just plain wrong as the rich.
It depends on the person and that person’s knowledge.
I was just glad these topics are beginning to be talked about.
Yes. Having taught and coached debate at community college, state university, and private four-year university, I have developed a strong respect for community colleges and their students. The common assumption that community colleges are just dumping grounds for students that can’t hack “better” schools is completely wrong. I perceive that conceit lying underneath the rhetoric of those who disparage denigrate community colleges.
Also, because I competed in and coached debate, I ran across quite a few of those Ivy League students. It was fun to beat them silly, but the frequency with which that was possible proves incorrect the assumption that Ivt League schools are objectively better in any way. In fact, a lot of the evidence shows that the best undergraduate teaching is NOT found in Ivy League schools or even the big state research schools, but in the private schools and in the community colleges where administration actually CARES about teaching.
I think parents who choose to send their kids to community college first are often buying a bargain at twice the price. Students can move on to the big state university or they can get a highly lucrative certification just at the CC. Do you have any idea how much a good plumber makes these days? Compare it to an English PhD, you’ll be shocked.
domajot,
I’m not saying that “the rich are incapable of providing good ideas for the poor, or the healthy can’t provide good cures for the sick.”
I’m saying they don’t really care, and I don’t think they will until they start losing elections and/or there are riots.
Jason ,
I have mixed feelings about community colleges. They produce many of the medical technicians that I work with everyday. A certified PET/CT tech can probably make more than someone with a PhD in English who is not in a tenured track position.
However, I went to undergraduate with people who tried to do their first two years at junior college and then tried to major in Engineering, physics, and biochemistry. They almosted always failed. Taking calculus and organic chemistry at a Juco is, in my opnion, not the same as taking it at an engineering school.
Maybe, like all other types of schools, there is a lot of variation among community college programs.
Two of my CC debaters went on to straight-A performances at four-year schools. One is headed for law school right now, the other is nationally ranked top-5 in debate and is probably going to wind up in a top-10 grad program.
And some vitally important types of education programs can only be found at the CC level. I’ve seen estimates of a national shortage of plumbers and mechanics in the hundreds of thousands in the next 20 years because we have, as a society, encouraged far too many people to enter the liberal arts and social sciences rather than paying attention to our “infrastructure workers”. So when Sen. Clinton says that we need to pay more attention and greater respect to those career paths, I think she’s on to something valid regardless of whatever her motives might be.
Superdestroyer:
The last thing that anyone who attend Sidwell Friends, the Dalton School, or Andover wants to do is try to make a living in the knowledge based, high tech economy. They would much prefer to produce plays, mangement not-for-profits, or write movie scripts. The elite in this country leave it to others to do the hard work of moving the economy forward.
What do you think the knowledge-based economy is? Content produces more value than hardware. One of the most successful businesses in the US — and one of our most successful exports — is the product that comes out of Hollywood. If the rest of the economy ran as well as Hollywood we’d have a staggeringly positive balance of trade. We dominate movie-making, TV, publishing, and not coincidentally, software.
m. takhallus,
Every year, a few days before the Academy Awards, CNBC reviews the movie industry. When judged on things like profits and return on investment, it underperforms because so many people like Karenna Gore or Alexandra Kerry who need to be supported.
Boring things like Supply Chain management are part of the knowledge based economy but boring, thus no one at Andover will want to work in that field.
[...] Hillary on the EconomyWestern economies are increasingly knowledge economies. This means that education is of the utmost importance. This, in turn, means that society must believe in education. This, in turn, means that society must praise those who go to … [...]
[...] Hillary on the EconomyWestern economies are increasingly knowledge economies. This means that education is of the utmost importance. This, in turn, means that society must believe in education. This, in turn, means that society must praise those who go to … [...]