October 27, 2011
It is really incredible how much ink that Robert Samuelson and his colleagues on the Post’s opinion and news pages can devote to the budget deficit at a time when 26 million people are unemployed, underemployed or out of work altogether. In a column on Monday Samuelson told us of his “fantasy”:
“Retired presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush would tour the country together and apologize. They would apologize for not tackling Social Security and Medicare when they had the chance.”
What a fantasy! Here we are sitting in the middle of the wreckage of the housing bubble and we are supposed to be upset at Presidents Clinton and Bush for not cutting Social Security and Medicare.
The bubble economy of course had its origins in the Clinton years. His team applauded the rise of stock prices to ever more irrational levels, somehow thinking that ever greater distortions in the stock market were evidence of a successful economy. In addition, Clinton’s Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin was the main promoter of the high dollar policy. This was the origins of the country’s huge trade deficit, which is the largest remaining imbalance in the U.S. economy. Clinton also pushed the financial deregulation that helped open the door for the financial crisis of 2008.
President Bush certainly has no better record. The housing bubble grew to ever more dangerous levels right in front of his face. All he could do was celebrate the rise in homeownership as a success in his quest for an “ownership society.”
The collapse of these bubbles is projected to cost the country $8.3 trillion. This is more than $27,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country. It might be reasonable to think that our former presidents owed us some sort of apology for leading us into this disaster. But not in Robert Samuelson’s world.
In Samuelson’s world they should be apologizing that the retirees, who saw their housing wealth decimated by the collapse of the bubble, are living on $1,200 monthly Social Security checks instead of $1,100 monthly checks. And, they should be apologizing that these retirees don’t have to pay more money for their health care.
That’s really some fantasy that Robert Samuelson has there.
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