Reply #27: ahem [View All]

[wyldwolf]

Poverty rates are meaningless because how they are calculated has nothing to do with the real world.

Tell that to the people who's income rose above the poverty level in the 90s. I'm sure they'll enjoy knowing their increase prosperity isn't "real world."

Expansions are useless if they don't benefit people at the bottom.

On the contrary. People in poverty ARE at the bottom. But I was lower middle class and the expansion was quite useful to me.

Why would normal people give a flying fuck that a few people benefitted from the tech bubble?

Clinton's economic plan in 1993 called for raising taxes on the wealthiest. The economy was humming several years before the tech bubble. He undid "Reaganomics" and disproved the trickle-down theory. By empowering the middle and lower classes by shifting more of the tax burden to the rich.

While the right wing and sadly now the left wing only focuses on the tech bubble in the stock market (which actually happened after the economy had already starting humming along), they neglect the breadth of Clinton's economic accomplishments. Political hubris is the most obvious reason for this denial. Clinton proved many important points. The two most obvious are you can balance the budget and grow the economy.

The tech bubble didn't kick into high gear until 1998 when interest rates decreased allowing start up capital amounts to increase. By then, millions of new jobs had already been created.

It's all been downhill for the bottom half since 1973.

Thank god Bill Clinton gave us some hope in the 1990s.

homelessness

President Clinton and Vice President Gore have been committed to helping homeless Americans become more self-sufficient. HUD alone has invested nearly $5 billion in programs to help homeless people since 1993 -- more than three times the investment of the previous Administration. The Continuum of Care approach has helped more than 300,000 homeless people get housing and jobs

Food insecurity and use of food banks

As your source said, "the dramatic growth of private charitable feeding efforts since the late 1970s suggests growing hunger. . ." Well, sounds like some poor planning in the 70s and 80s caused a spike in the late 90s. :shrug:

Prison population (continuing trend started by Reagan)

The president has nada to do with local and state law enforcement, trial, and sentencing. But good thing the Biden plan to put more cops on the streets kicked in because the 90s saw lower crime rates.

Income disparity - During the years of the Clinton administration, the rich became richer at much faster rate than during Reagan's regime.

Umm... so? Every economic class as a whole became better off. :shrug: That's why the 90s were known as an era of prosperity.