The Clinton Years: The Most Neoliberal Presidency in U.S. History.

Thirty years ago, a bright, energetic, smooth talking young politician from Arkansas had just clinched the Democratic primary to become his party’s nominee for president.

To do this story justice, I really want to steer clear of the more salacious details of his presidency and conspiratorial claims that continue to haunt the Clinton family. It’s uninteresting and distracts from important details about his tenure and how his policies hang over the Democratic Party and the nation like a dark cloud.

Because of my age, the '90s were my political coming of age years. Likewise, because of my age, there was so much about those years that I couldn’t appreciate or understand. But history is quite clear, and getting clearer, as we deal with the repercussions of this period.

So, to wave away the fog even more, we’re going to split this up into three parts. It’s a bit unorthodox for us, I know. But I really think the Clinton years warrant our extreme focus and attention. The first part is actually going to be close to the present day, examining the legacy of Bill Clinton through the lens of the Clinton Foundation and how it continues to embody the neoliberal ideals of the New Democrats. The foundation is an interesting animal because it remains an extension of Clinton in both good and bad ways. Good in terms of intent, bad in terms of execution and guiding principles. Mind you, this isn’t a hit piece on the foundation like we’ve become accustomed to in the media. There are great people at the foundation and they’ve done some meaningful work, but the approach gives us remarkable insight into how deep the neoliberal infection runs in the Democratic Party.

Next week, Part Two will focus on how Clinton developed his political, economic and social principles during his rise to power and ultimately shaped his two terms in office and the legacy of the party through Obama, and now with Biden.

And lastly, we’ll scrutinize the presidential years in the '90s. All of the gory policy details and none of the pornographic ones.

The through line is indeed neoliberalism. and while we’ve unpacked this term many times before, it warrants revisiting to contextualize Bill Clinton’s philosophy and tenure. The term neoliberalism purportedly first appeared in 1938 at a European conference attended by Friedrich Hayek, who began to develop and refine an economic theory that departed from the Keynesian conventions of the day. The term would ultimately be applied to the work produced by Hayek’s Mont Pelerin Society, whose star pupil from the Chicago School of Economics would go on to become one of the most influential figures in modern history, and the nemesis of our little show.

Neoliberalism is an economic model that promotes free market liberalism and global trade above all else. Its proponents take a cynical view of government regulation and intervention into markets and society. They believe that governments exist primarily to protect trade and that they should be limited to protecting citizens from foreign invasion and from one another; put another way, a government’s exclusive purview is in the carceral and punitive sphere. Free markets can provide everything from capital accumulation and resource management to social services, healthcare and education. The free market can end racism. Alleviate poverty. Prevent war. Neoliberalism calls for the wholesale deregulation of government services whenever and wherever the private sector can function and views citizens in society merely as consumers in a marketplace.

Nowhere was neoliberalism so unabashedly on display as it was during the Clinton administration. These were the glory days. Not Reagan. Not Bush one or Bush two. Not Obama and certainly not Trump. It was green-light-go for the Chicago boys when ol’ slick Willy from Arkansas came to town. 

Chapter One

The Foundation. Let’s start at the end.

“When we started, the commitments process was a little card and you just filled it in. And then we figured out, we better figure out how to help people develop these commitments. Then we figured out we better determine how we can help them keep the commitments. So, pretty soon, most people were involved in helping people commit and keep the commitments.”  -An excerpt from Bill Clinton’s closing remarks at the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in 2016.

These were former President Bill Clinton’s remarks recounting the accomplishments of the Clinton Global Initiative and all the commitments that were committed to and the people who were committed to helping people commit to their commitments and keep them.

The Clinton Global Initiative was just one of the programs beneath the umbrella of the infamous Clinton Foundation that drew a great deal of attention from right wing media and the Trump Justice Department. This particular program was shut down in 2017 as the foundation looked to refocus its efforts following Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump. During the election itself, the Clintons had pledged to restructure the entire foundation by removing family from leadership positions and foregoing any donations from foreign governments, NGOs or individuals.

Controversy had already broken out with the leak of emails from Hillary Clinton, John Podesta and the DNC. And, while never proven, certain emails appeared to suggest a sort of pay-to-play relationship for access to the Obama administration for wealthy foreign foundation donors.

Trump and the right wing media pounced all over it, while team Clinton attempted to downplay the growing scandal.

The scandal would endure well into Trump’s term, as the foundation struggled to find its footing amidst deeper investigations into its financial dealings.

Like most Clinton scandals, where there was smoke, there was fire. But not a wildfire. Just little brush fires that served to harden the impression on the right that the Clintons were corrupt. And all extinguished enough to satisfy Democrats that this right wing obsession is, was and will always be unfounded.

In true Clinton fashion, they were able to stay one step ahead of any real legal trouble, and the foundation lives on to this day. Even the Global Initiative is apparently getting revitalized, because lord knows the world needs the Clintons now more than ever. Amirite?

I thought it appropriate to begin with the Clinton Foundation because, after all of their years in public service, one can imagine they have learned a great deal about the world and how to fix it. It’s hard to argue their pedigree. Between them, the couple has Arkansas Governor, Secretary of State, U.S. Senator and President of the United States on their combined resume. Game, set and match on best power couple LinkedIn profile of all time.

But the foundation reveals how little they’ve learned.

As we dig into the foundation, I want to start on a positive note. Here’s a passage from a New Yorker article outlining some of the foundation’s successes in an effort to debunk claims that it was nothing more than a “slush fund,” a popular phrase on the right used to describe the foundation.

“In a 2014 report, the World Health Organization credited the foundation's health arm, the Clinton Health Access Initiative, which is now a separate, but affiliated, entity, with helping to bring down the cost of AIDS drugs in poor countries. ‘Nine million people have lower-cost H.I.V./AIDS medicine because of the work of the Clinton Foundation and my husband,’ Clinton told Anderson Cooper, in June of this year. After examining the basis of this claim, the fact-checking Web site Politifact rated it as ‘true,’ saying, ‘If anything, Clinton understated the number of people who have benefited from the program.’ Charity Watch, the watchdog group formerly known as the American Institute of Philanthropy, has granted the Clinton Foundation an A grade for financial management.”

This article came at a time when even Democrats were calling upon the Clintons to abandon the foundation altogether. The whiff of impropriety, especially surrounding Hillary during the campaign, was unseemly and, to many in the party, unnecessary. Plus, it kept former President Clinton in the limelight, and he was becoming increasingly prone to outbursts and statements that the campaign needed to walk back.

But the election of Donald Trump changed the calculus on nearly everything for the Clintons. So, while they did move to shutter the Clinton Global Initiative, the balance of the foundation remained intact, though donations declined precipitously at first. The foundation was at a crossroads.

Despite the ongoing inquiries into their finances, the foundation slowly regained its footing during the Trump years and continued with several core initiatives. Its efforts include climate resilience, tackling the opioid crisis, post-disaster recovery programs throughout the Caribbean, training young future leaders and its “Too Small to Fail” program that provides guidance for children to succeed in school and beyond. Sounds great and wholesome and, as I said before, the foundation has achieved some tangible results. Some.

Before we go further into how the foundation and their programs are structured, which strikes at the heart of our story today, let’s dig into the finances. As we do.

 

The last available annual report came out in November of 2021, covering the full year of 2020. It’s a fascinating look into what’s considered a top rated charity in the world. It’s important to note that this particular foundation is a programmatic charity. It’s not designed to award grants and funds to other charities, though it has the capacity to do so, and does from time to time. And we’ll go through some of the language they use to illustrate their approach to changing the world in a moment. But first, here’s a look at the numbers.

From the top: In 2020, the Clinton Foundation took in about $52 million in revenue, mostly between grants and contributions, though it had a few sources of extra income. But the bulk was donations. And it made about $33 million in investment income. Hmmm. Back to that in a moment.

As far as expenses, the foundation laid out about $31 million in program expenses, $6 million in management overhead and $3.3 million in fundraising expenses. Now, these expenses are primarily in salaries. Back to that in a moment as well.

So, all told for 2020, the foundation had a net gain of $10.6 million in assets; essentially the profit from operations, though it’s not considered profit in a non-profit organization, obviously. But they brought in $10 million more than they spent on programming.

On the surface, not that momentous right? I mean just last week we delved into the finances of the fake conservative propaganda organization PragerU that had almost the same top line revenue as the fucking Clinton Foundation. Except they just make poisonous videos that tell young people that racism isn’t real. Well, the similarities don’t end with the amount of revenue. Turns out, both organizations are sitting on a fucking boatload of cash. As of the end of 2020, the Clinton Foundation had more than $323 million in liquid assets, $81 million of which is “unrestricted,” meaning for any use.

Again, another important distinction is this concept of restricted versus unrestricted. Unrestricted means they can deploy that cash however they see fit. Restricted means it sits there for either donor approved purposes or it has self-imposed limitations in the organization’s bylaws. In Clinton’s case, it’s the latter. The organization is designed to absorb money to grow its endowment, and these funds have specific uses like operating the Clinton presidential library in Arkansas. And it allows for 3% to 5% of the funds to be used toward programs.

You see this a lot in higher education. Institutions that sit on massive sums of money to be used at the board’s discretion. Financing construction projects, buying land, saving for a rainy day, etc. But for a foundation that purports to be a change agent for climate, economic development, early childhood education and disaster preparedness, it sure is cautious in how it deploys its funds.

Now, for that part about investment income. The foundation keeps most of its cash in a range of investments, though it has a few million in actual cash on hand. For the most part, though, their money is tied up in the following ways:

• $4 million in cash money. Clams. Moolah. Benjamins.

• $52 million in mutual funds.

• $107 million in various types of hedge funds.

• $35 million in private equity funds.

• $19 million in what they just call “strategic investment funds.”

In terms of donations, they listed nine private, meaning personal donors, but failed to list the names. But they raised about $7.2 million from just nine individuals, which is pretty substantial in personal donations, but a drop in the bucket overall.

When it comes to where they allocate their funds between programs and handing out grants, the bulk of their money actually stays within the United States. In fact, the foundation apparently allocates money to three foreign regions, and the numbers are small. $2 million to climate initiatives in the Caribbean and Central America, $2 million to economic development in South America and $2.5 million to Sub-Saharan African climate and economic development. That’s it.

But recall that they do have the ability to award grants to other non-profit organizations, so these are worth calling out as well:

• $625,000 went to the Alliance for a Healthier Generation.

• $10 Grand to City Year Little Rock.

• $6,500 to CovEducation. (Whatever that is.)

• $52,000 to Kaboom!

• $27,000 to Laundry Cares Foundation. (Is that a real thing?)

• And $1.1 million to… (Wait for it)... (Wait for it)... The George W. Bush Foundation in Dallas, Texas.

Let’s wrap this part up by talking about tangibles.

We gave credit where it was due with respect to lowering the price of HIV medications in poor countries. And that was a real thing. President Clinton actually addressed how that happened in his state of the foundation address we quoted earlier. Basically, that came about through his diplomatic cajoling of drug companies, NGOs and healthcare providers. It was such a success that it laid the way for how the foundation would evaluate opportunities to make an impact in other large scale initiatives. Taking one idea that worked in a very specific circumstance, then applying that same logic across the board is a theme that I want you to remember in the next chapter.

But this brings us to the bit about program and salaries. Because the foundation isn’t really designed to award grants…Unless it’s to former presidential war criminals who drove the U.S. economy into the ground, created the widespread domestic surveillance apparatus and got us into two protracted multi-billion dollars wars that produced hardship and millions of casualties abroad... it measures success through consulting and support performed by hundreds of Clinton Foundation employees throughout the U.S. and a handful of other countries around the world.

These staffers are so effective that the foundation website, impact statement and annual report all claim:

• That the foundation has improved the lives of 430 million people (!) across the globe.

• That 30 million children in the United States are leading healthier lives.

• And they’ve graduated 11,000 students from their Clinton Global Initiative University program ready to take on the challenges of tomorrow…

…Among other things. Pretty hefty claims if I may say so.

During the pandemic, in the heart of Arkansas, the foundation partnered with Bank of America to provide year-round virtual programming, academic experiences and workshops that prompted civic engagement.

It created an action network that held enriching conversations designed to create a more equitable and inclusive recovery to the hurricane in Puerto Rico in partnership with Mastercard.

It partnered with Verizon, IBM and several universities to gather student leaders committed to making positive change.

It partnered with both Bush foundations to teach leadership lessons from former presidents to 350 scholars committed to tackling today’s most pressing challenges.

Look. There are certainly some fine people working at the Clinton Foundation. And the goals are lofty and admirable. But, hopefully, you were able to read between the lines to understand the Clinton mentality. A couple of observations.

Yes. It’s important to have leadership in crucial initiatives. Someone needs to be in charge. Setting the course. Steering the ship. And the foundation certainly has the reputation to draw awareness and focus attention on critical issues. That’s important. And the foundation’s staff is deliberately and beautifully diverse. Also important.

But the real work is being done by the organizations they’re corralling, and there’s a good chance they’d be doing it anyway. The foundation is basically a vessel to hire extremely well intentioned young people and expose them to domestic and global challenges that are being solved and tackled on the ground by other people.

$31 million in overhead for personnel to develop ideas, extract commitments, inspire leadership, cultivate partnerships, promote civic engagement and foster inclusivity in decision making is exactly the type of liberal green and white washing establishment speak that sounds great but accomplishes little. The rather audacious claim that this plucky band of do-gooders improved the lives of 430 million people is a bit much, even for the most generous fans of the Clintons.

But it’s really about something else.

Verizon. IBM. Mastercard. Bank of America.

To understand Bill Clinton, the shadow he casts on our nation and economy to this day, his worldview, his presidency, legacy, everything about him is to understand the nature of public/private partnerships and wholehearted dedication to neoliberal economic theory that has poisoned our nation. Perhaps, beyond the point of no return.

The steadfast and dogmatic belief that governments and nongovernmental organizations alike can only be effective when in partnership with the private sector is core to understanding this man. And a great place to rewind, as we examine slick Willy’s origin story.

Before we move on, I want to plant a few seeds for the next section.

The first is to say that, while the focus of this series is on the political legacy of Bill Clinton, it in no way suggests that Hillary Clinton is distinct. From the earliest days of his political career, Hillary Clinton played a crucial role in both the development of his political philosophy and its execution. The fact that she has been a lightning rod of criticism in a way that her husband was able to mostly deflect over time is more a reflection of American misogyny than it is a critique of her power and influence. Their marital issues aside, Bill and Hillary Clinton have effectively functioned as a singular power unit unrivaled in history.

In Part Two, we’re going to rely heavily on a relatively new book titled Left Behind: The Democrats’ Failed Attempt to Solve Inequality, by Lily Geismer. Of all the options for Book Love, I’m fortunate to have come across Geismer’s book because it has the benefit of timeliness and a remarkably clear narrative that tracks closely with the larger suppositions of UNFTR. Here’s a passage from the introduction that perfectly encapsulates the premise of the book:

“Left Behind dispels this narrative of the Democratic Party and the political history of the United States since the late 1960s. It reveals how Bill Clinton and the New Democrats helped to fundamentally remake many of the priorities and policies of the Democratic Party and liberalism during this period. The New Democrats’ adoption of market-oriented approaches to address inequality was not a defensive reaction to the Republicans. Rather, it was based on a genuine belief in the power of the market and private sector to achieve traditional liberal ideals of creating equality, individual choice, and help for people in need… Even more significantly, by placing poor people at the whims of the private sector, it put them and their communities at risk for financial instability and predation, as became all too clear in the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath.”

Lastly, you’ll notice that I will continue to avoid the more tawdry details of their time in power. The sheer amount of time they have occupied positions of power and influence in the modern era warrants an honest assessment and almost psychological profile of this curious couple. One concluding observation I can comfortably make, even at this beginning stage of the profile, is that my feelings toward them are similar to the ones I have toward Uncle Fucknugget, Milton Friedman. I believe wholeheartedly that the Clintons are ideologues. True believers. People who were as attracted to the flame of power as they were to making positive changes in the world.

But they are also the ultimate technocrats. Believers in technology and the power of markets to alleviate poverty, global warming, education, hurricanes, war, famine, you name it. And they came of age in the post-Powell Memo era when corporate America decided to fight back and wrest control. Corporate influence was already normalized when Bill Clinton became governor of Arkansas, the first story that we’ll tell in the next episode. So much so that he would move effortlessly between the two worlds until they ultimately merged into one as the corporate takeover of the nation was completed under his successors.

Here endeth Part One of “The Clinton Years.”

The primary takeaway from this Clinton Years series is the New Democrats’ affinity for public/private partnerships and shift away from New Deal and Great Society thinking that defined the Democratic Party from the Depression era through the 1980s.

It’s a shift that persists to this day, as evidenced by the structure and achievements of The Clinton Foundation. While the doctrine of free market idealism might have been a right wing invention, it became increasingly adopted and accepted in both major parties. While many on the political left have come to understand that free market policies have been detrimental to low income communities in both rural and urban areas, to people of color more specifically and the planet as a whole, the Clinton Foundation continues to stubbornly pursue market based solutions to healthcare, education, disaster recovery and climate issues with corporate partners in tow.

It’s an old dog that can’t seem to learn any new tricks. But it certainly brings in the cash.

The unquestioned belief in the power of free markets has created near total alignment on economic policy between the two major parties. The ensuing battle between the parties became more about maintaining traditional appearances on core social issues and resulted in the ridiculous culture wars of today.

In terms of economic policy, the language might differ, but the results are very much the same. Democrats speak about hope and opportunity. Progress. Mobility. Resilience and equality. Republicans talk about choice, freedom and economic liberty.  Republicans continue to speak pejoratively about welfare. Democrats can’t even utter the word. In so many ways, it feels as though the progressive movement is back at square one with only unions, civil rights activists and Democratic socialists advocating for economic justice, fairness, equity, inclusion and human rights.

Square one, by the way, was about 100 years ago in the so-called Roaring Twenties when inequality was severe, women had few rights, voting access was limited and corporate interests outweighed those of the government. The monied class was drunk on hubris, believing the ride would never end. Sound familiar?

But this was also a time when socialists held a legitimate place in American politics. Socialism was sweeping Europe and Latin America and taking root in the United States. Figures like Eugene Debs and Upton Sinclair were taken as serious reformers coming out of the first Great War. And, while the Great Depression curtailed the movement and derailed governments around the world, many of the policies endured under FDR, an unlikely champion of public welfare and government expansion.

The left wing would continue to have its champions throughout the 20th Century such as George McGovern, and into the 21st with the populist embrace of Bernie Sanders. At each juncture, the country was presented with a clear choice and progressive vision that was beaten back by corporate interests and wealthy elites. These inflection points appear even more tragic, in hindsight, as the country contends with the fallout from America’s embrace of neoliberalism. While these policies have facilitated great technological advances and promoted U.S. economic hegemony for half a century, they’ve had catastrophic consequences for impoverished citizens in the country, the working class, citizens of the Global South and most consequently the planet.

Evaluating history is the ultimate game of ‘what if.’ What if socialism took root in the ‘20s and ‘30s? What if McGovern ran a better organization and beat Nixon? What if the DNC didn’t work even harder than the Republican Party to bury Bernie Sanders? Twice. In addition to reviewing the rise of Bill Clinton and the origin of his particular brand of economic neoliberalism, we’ll examine yet another ‘what if’ moment for the progressives. We’ll look at the ties that bound Clinton as governor, the class of New Democrats that took over the party and shifted it to the right and the forces that aligned with and against Bill Clinton.

Chapter Two

Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

Let’s begin with a tale of an on again off again governor from the impoverished southern state of Arkansas. William Jefferson Clinton was governor of Arkansas, twice. In total, he spent a dozen years of his career in this office, though his tenure was interrupted early on. We’ll talk about that in a second. But it was enough time in office to have a demonstrable impact, and a record worth reviewing.

An honest assessment of his tenure as governor appeared in The Baltimore Sun in 1992 on the eve of the presidential election. From the article:

“During his 12 years as governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton has improved the schools, kept taxes low, increased the number of jobs, improved civil rights for minorities and maintained one of the cleanest environments in the country."

“Or, he has presided over one of the worst-educated states in the country, raised taxes on everything from groceries to used cars, watched as wages declined, failed to gain a civil rights law for his state's citizens and allowed the poultry industry to stall state regulation of water pollution caused by chicken droppings.”

Arkansas voters seem to move from one party to the other fluidly and consistently. The governor’s office alternates between the parties every few years or so, but I think it’s fair to say the governing philosophy has stayed relatively the same since the Clinton era. The Sun’s ambiguous review of his time in office is par for the course when it comes to Clinton. Like a shiny car on the used car lot, his governing style looks pretty great until you drive it off the lot.

According to U.S. News, Arkansas’ ranking on key metrics today paints pretty much the same picture as when Clinton left office:

• 49th in health care

• 41st in education

• 41st in economy

• 43rd in infrastructure

• 48th in crime and corrections

• 30th in natural environment

And one final metric that seems pretty positive on the surface:

• 14th in fiscal stability

For shits and giggles, let’s set these figures against Massachusetts:

• 2nd in health care

• 2nd in education

• 5th in economy

• 42nd in infrastructure

• 4th in crime and corrections

• 4th in natural environment

• 43rd in fiscal stability

The big stuff is obvious, but the most revealing figure is actually that part about fiscal stability. How can a state as impoverished, undereducated and underdeveloped as Arkansas crush a state like Massachusetts in terms of fiscal stability?

Well, this metric is a composite number. It’s made up of the size of the state’s pension fund liability and its ability to balance a budget. A low pension liability is a reflection of small wages and public retirement savings, and a budget that is simple and easy to balance is more indicative of a state that offers little in the way of social welfare and government assistance.

This is the gubernatorial legacy of Clinton’s Arkansas.

Despite these dismal statistics, Bill Clinton was able to craft a compelling narrative surrounding his ability to transform the economy of his home state. Here’s a quote from one of his 1992 campaign ads:

“For 12 years, he’s battled the odds in one of America’s poorest states, and made steady progress. Arkansas is now first in the nation in job growth. Even Bush’s own Secretary of Labor just called job growth in Arkansas ‘enormous.’”

This was the message that he would run on, promising to usher in a wave of economic reforms that would supercharge America’s growth in the post Cold War era. A technocratic and free market approach to leadership and just the breath of fresh air the so-called New Democrats were looking for. And there were a handful of small successes the Clinton team promoted vigorously to champion this new vision. Before we get to those anecdotes and his free market vision, there was another important lesson that Bill Clinton learned along the way that has to do with that brief interruption in tenure we talked about before.

This is one of those formative tales like George Washington and the Cherry Tree or young Abe Lincoln walking miles to give customers at the general store their change, earning him the nickname Honest Abe. Except this story is verifiable and true.

“The Arkansas system had always been to find some good young people and encourage them to work on the local level. The system kind of weeds them out, and out of that comes a United States Senator or a governor... It’s like a horse race. You back three or four, so you always got a winner.”

These are the words of Don Tyson, Arkansas kingmaker and head of the Tyson chicken empire, now Tyson Foods, a $50 billion global conglomerate. Don Tyson passed away in 2011, but for decades he was the head of the company and brought it to $10 billion in revenue before his retirement. Don Tyson determined who rose to elected office and who stayed in elected office. Bill Clinton would learn this the hard way.

Don Tyson was a critical backer of Clinton in 1976 when he ran and won the seat for state attorney general. After losing a Congressional campaign prior, the young Rhodes Scholar was finally on his way. He was the favorite in the ‘78 gubernatorial election, but before he could sew up the nod from Tyson again, he had to make a promise. Here’s an excerpt from an old New York Times Magazine article on the pair’s relationship:

“Before Tyson made his gubernatorial choice for 1978, he posed a question. In the relentless drive of expansion and acquisition that would make Tyson Foods the largest poultry processing company in the world, Tyson faced a serious obstacle. In recent years, most other states had raised their legal truck weight limits from about 73,000 to 80,000 pounds. Arkansas, though, still stuck to the old limit, which put the state's poultry and trucking companies at a disadvantage with their out-of-state competitors and cost them millions of dollars. Would a Governor Clinton take care of that problem? Candidate Clinton, recalls Tyson, said he would be happy to.”

It’s at this point things start to get a little murky, and chatter developed around Clinton’s wife playing fast and loose with friends of Tyson’s and certain investment schemes. That story is for another day, but suffice it to say a dicey commodities investment typically reserved for well heeled, savvy investors netted Bill and Hillary a 10,000% return on a modest investment. Dumb luck? Maybe. But this and future investments would loom large over the Clinton finances. But it wasn’t the biggest lesson the Clintons learned from this period.

Once in office, Clinton gave up on the trucking initiative that he’d promised Don Tyson he would take care of. So when re-election time came, Tyson pulled his support, and the ambitious young Clinton lost his bid to return to the governor’s mansion. A few things about this moment in time. First off, on his own accord, Clinton fought hard to regain his seat in the next election. Then he pushed through Tyson’s trucking request and brought him back into the fold. The relationship between the men would endure from this point forward, built on the understanding that one does not fuck with monied interests. A lesson the Clintons would carry with them the rest of their careers.

Chapter Three

Micro-finance as a macro policy.

The New Democrats were on the rise. The resounding defeat of Jimmy Carter led to two terms under Reagan, and George H.W. Bush was looking to continue the legacy. Young guns in the party were looking to make a name for themselves to introduce their newfound embrace of the free markets and show that Democrats could be tough.

This new breed of Democrat looked to break from the old guard in every way, so they formed a new coalition called the DLC, which stood for Democratic Leadership Council. Progressive politicians of the day referred to the DLC as the “Democrats of the leisure class,” a reflection of the predominantly Ivy League, white male composition of the bunch.

The group included upstarts like Richard Lamm, Michael Dukakis, Jerry Brown, Paul Tsongas, Dick Gephardt, Bill Bradley, Gary Hart and Tim Wirth, many of whom shared what Lily Geismer, in her book Left Behind: The Democrats’ Failed Attempt to Solve Inequality, calls a “commitment to meritocracy and technocratic solutions to social problems.”

The concept of doing well by doing good is the central theme of the exposition by Geismer. That the new generation of governance can be a series of win-win policy propositions:

“Clinton used it to describe both his administration’s approach of enlisting the private sector to address poverty domestically and using free trade and globalization to promote freedom, democracy, and human rights around the world… Beginning in the 1970s, this brand of Democrats consistently advocated that the future of both the economy and the Democratic Party lay in shoring up the entrepreneurial post-industrial economy and its college-educated, non unionized workforce.”

There were differences in the approach the New Democrats took compared to the burgeoning hardline neoliberal Republicans of the era. As Clinton assembled advisors, peers and colleagues, they collectively began to paint a picture of what was to come. People like close friend and fellow Rhodes Scholar Robert Reich, an early and longtime friend of Bill Clinton who was becoming a noted economic theorist and would play a central role in Clinton’s presidential administration.

Here’s Geismer on Reich:

“Reich’s industrial policy did, however, mark a key departure from the Keynesian model and its focus on stimulating demand. Instead, Reich emphasized increasing investment in the private sector to create productivity. Unlike conservatives like Milton Friedman, who emphasized expanding capital and letting the invisible hand of the market rule without government oversight, Reich argued that the government should direct the investment and direct it toward high-tech industries.”

Some criticized Reich as a central planning socialist. Unions, on the other hand, saw him as a threat toward organized labor. It was Reich’s focus on high-tech so-called “sunrise” industries that appealed to the New Democrats. But where Reich believed that promoting such industries was a pathway to increasing global competitiveness and opening new markets for growth, he also believed in big government direction, regulation and domestic spending that would return to benefit marginalized populations. Social justice was the outcome Reich desired by way of GDP growth. The New Democrats would adopt mainly the first half of this proposition and wind up ignoring the second, more critical, aspect of growth and prosperity: The people.

The organizing forces behind the New Democrat movement began to alter the language of the party much in the way the Southern Strategy altered the language of Republicans, as famously revealed by strategist Lee Atwater. For the Democrats, it was important to move away from the Great Society and New Deal language that conflicted with the patriotic opportunism of the Reagan era. Words like redistribution, welfare and fairness became anathema and would be replaced by platitudes like rebuilding, opportunity, investment and expansion.

So, recall from Chapter One when we spoke about the Clinton Foundation taking a successful concept that worked because of an alignment of stars, then applied it to every aspect of the work they do. Their success in driving down the price of HIV/AIDS medication in African nations led the Clintons to believe that political persuasion of a former U.S. President and cooperation with private companies and non-governmental health organizations would work in scenarios as diverse as climate change and poverty initiatives.

Similarly, when Bill Clinton was looking for smart new ideas to alleviate poverty in his home state of Arkansas, he seized on a micro-financing concept that had delivered stunning results in Bangladesh. I know. But bear with me, because this would be a hallmark of his tenure in the governor’s mansion, the Oval Office and beyond.

Editor’s Note: A great primer on this next section is our second most popular episode titled The Economics of Racism. The episode destroys myths about banking and finance in predominantly black communities post Reconstruction. Since the conclusion of the Civil War, countless prominent figures in both Civil Rights and the political and banking establishments have tried to solve issues of system poverty through access to credit, black owned banks and community development programs; none of which attacked the underlying cause of economic disenfranchisement of the system, i.e., racism.

Well, in the 1970s, another such endeavor was established in Chicago, with good intentions and a relatively successful vision. It was called ShoreBank Corporation. ShoreBank was designed to leverage deposits within a community of color in service of small economic development programs. What made ShoreBank successful where others had failed was experienced leadership that kept a tight hold on deposits, credit and investments. Solid old-school banking practices with human underwriting, compassion and discipline. Most importantly: It was small. And manageable.

ShoreBank’s success began to attract attention from large funders such as the Ford Foundation that sought to supercharge the model and develop it in other parts of the country and the world. At Ford’s request, the team from ShoreBank met with another star project in their portfolio called Grameen Bank, founded by an entrepreneur and economist named Muhammad Yunus. His vision specifically was micro-finance.

Loans to individuals in peer groups responsible for paying back small loans at high interest rates. Women in rural communities who could purchase sewing equipment to expand their output. Restaurant equipment and supplies. Tools. Anything to increase production and encourage entrepreneurship among a class of citizens previously denied economic opportunities. As Geismer writes:

“Grameen experiences, almost from the start, a 98% on-time repayment, and less than 1% of borrowers defaulted. These results were especially impressive given the bank’s high interest rate… By 1982, Grameen had a presence in over 480 villages and extended loans to 25,000 borrowers… Yunus found that women did not just make payments more regularly, but also used the funds in more responsible ways.”

As Geismer tells it, when the Clintons got wind of the success of Grameen and understood the domestic possibilities through companies like ShoreBank, a lightbulb went off. To break from the old guard and welfare state label of the Democratic Party, Clinton had been on the hunt for ways to reform welfare and spur economic development in his state. Something that could provide a model platform for his loftier national ambitions. He saw what many in the foundation world saw: Micro-finance was a panacea. Credit was the path to prosperity. Turning every poor person into an entrepreneur. Giving them access to credit to fuel start up businesses would keep them off the welfare rolls, get people to work and spark growth and development.

Healthcare? Nah. Education? Who needs it? Credit is the cure for what ails ya.

Clinton invited the ShoreBank and Grameen crews to Arkansas to set up shop and establish a micro-lending organization called the Good Faith Fund.

“Mirroring Grameen Bank’s famed model,” writes Geismer, “GFF adopted a peer-lending system, where four to six people created a group and were collectively responsible for paying back the loan. GFF required that loan be paid back on a weekly installment system at an 11% interest rate. Although lower than the 20% interest rate Grameen charged, it was still significantly higher than most conventional loans in the U.S. In fact, it was the maximum allowed under Arkansas’s usury laws.”

It didn’t work.

Part of the issue in rural Arkansas as compared to Bangladesh was population density. While it was reasonable to assume that a woman in a densely populated village could expand a sewing or food preparation business, the sparsely populated rural areas in Arkansas were missing a key ingredient to entrepreneurial success: Customers. And because it leveraged a peer lending operation, the high amount of defaults made the peer group model falter as well.

For my money, here’s the kicker, and the economic lesson. As Geismer notes:

“In the Arkansas context, Yunus and the other GFF architects overestimated the interest in entrepreneurialism and small business ownership in the Pine Bluff area. Staffers quickly discovered the majority of residents still preferred wage work and their old factory jobs to self-employment.”

This was part of the New Democrat ethos. No welfare without work. No work available? Become an entrepreneur. No customers? Not our problem. It was a 50/50 proposition for the New Democrats who truly bought into a small micro-finance program on the other side of the planet. Half of the equation was a genuine belief in the neoliberal model of free markets. The other half was the ability to appear tough on welfare recipients.

The refrain “end welfare as we know it” was part of the Clinton campaign lexicon longer than perhaps any other idea. It was absolutely central to his political identity. Nothing could be more reflective of an antipathy toward the poor and working class in this country than to scold them into either becoming a business owner and entrepreneur, or to get lost.

But, as much as the New Democrat mantra was to appear tough on welfare in this new assault on the working poor, it would pale in comparison to their desire to appear tough on crime.

Chapter Four

Between sunshine and rain…A Rainbow Coalition.

One of the things I love about Geismer’s analysis is that she paints a picture of the tension that existed in the party at the time. We recently mentioned the Eric Cantor moment after the Obama election, where he gathered House Republicans and chastised them for laying in the fetal position. Obama’s victory at the time was seen as such a resounding and wholesale rebuke of Republican policies, it seemed like the GOP was officially dead.

Likewise, the Reagan revolution was seen in a similar light in the late 1980s. Carter was made to look like a speed bump on the path to progress. The party of LBJ  and FDR was remote, weak and anachronistic. It would require a complete reimagining of the party if Democrats were ever to find their way back into power. But, first, it had to reconcile its past and find a way to beat back the vestiges of everything that had previously mattered to Democrats. All of the gains from the Civil Rights movement, Johnson’s Great Society and FDR’s New Deal were on the shoulders of an unlikely figure in charge of a colorful coalition.

“The genius of America is that out of the many we become one. Providence has enabled our paths to intersect. His forebears came to America on immigrant ships. My forebears came to America on slave ships. But whatever the original ships, we’re in the same boat tonight.” -Jesse Jackson of the Rainbow Coalition speaking at the Democratic National Convention in 1988 about his rival Michael Dukakis.

We’ve addressed a few “what if” moments in the past. Inflection points in history that had significant consequences. Most recently, what if the Democratic establishment had coalesced behind Bernie Sanders and accepted him as the torch bearer for the party and his revolution as the real deal? Well, a seemingly forgotten piece of Democratic history was how prominent Jesse Jackson was as a political force in the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s.

At the Democratic National Convention in 1988, Bill Clinton would have his big coming out, delivering a speech that he hoped would place him firmly in the national spotlight and make him a contender in ‘92. Few thought that Bush could be beaten in ‘88, and the so-called New Democrats hadn’t solidified their brand as of yet. Though key figures like Al Gore and Dick Gephardt were on the primary ballot, the real battle was between Michael Dukakis and Jesse Jackson. This was the battle for the soul of the Democratic Party, and Dukakis getting trounced in the general would only serve to embolden the newly formed DLC that the party needed to move to the right or risk annihilation forever.

Bill Clinton was hoping to make a name for himself and be seen as the heir apparent to the party as he traveled the nation promoting his ideas of ending welfare as we know it, being tough on crime, reinvigorating the economy and opening global markets.

But lost in this telling is the competing vision at the time. And the eerily similar nature of the party’s treatment toward Jackson and Bernie Sanders more recently. Bill Clinton’s speech, by the way, was a disaster. Long and meandering. Boring. And he was ridiculed as not ready for primetime by many. And, when compared to the soaring rhetoric of Jesse Jackson, it seemed even more plodding and amateurish.

Michael Dukakis was offering the country stable, liberal and soft intellectual leadership. The Republicans would have a field day painting him as a weak liberal who looked stupid in a helmet. Jackson, on the other hand, was offering a full throated progressive vision for the nation that scared the shit out of Republicans and Democrats alike. Here are a few highlights from his 1988 Convention speech outlining progressive policies. Let me know if any of them sound familiar.

Jackson 1988 Platform Excerpts

Voting Access

Jackson: “The John Conyers Bill. Universal on-site, same-day registration everywhere.”

 

DC Statehood

Jackson: “A commitment to DC statehood and empowerment. DC deserves statehood.”

 

Affordable Education and Healthcare

Jackson: “Common ground. At the schoolyard where teachers cannot get adequate pay. Students cannot get a scholarship and can’t make a loan. Common ground. At the hospital admitting room where someone tonight is dying because they cannot afford to go upstairs to a bed that’s empty waiting for someone with insurance to get sick. We are a better nation than that. We must do better.”

 

Reaganomics

Jackson:“They engaged in reverse Robin Hood. Took from the poor. Gave [to] the rich. Paid for by the middle class. We cannot stand four more years of Reaganomics in any version, in any disguise.”

 

Pay Equality

Jackson:“We must never surrender to inequality. Women cannot compromise ERA or comparable worth. Women are making 60 cents on the dollar to what a man makes. Women cannot buy meat cheaper. Women cannot buy bread cheaper. Women cannot buy milk cheaper. Women deserve to get paid for the work that you do.”

 

Disability Rights

Jackson:“The only justification we have for looking down on someone is that we’re going to stop and pick them up. Even in your wheelchairs, do not give up. We cannot forget 50 years ago when our backs were against the wall, Roosevelt was in a wheelchair. I would rather have Roosevelt in a wheelchair than Reagan and Bush on a horse.”

Jackson had been a prominent national figure for many years, so everyone knew what he was capable of. Jackson was a firebrand of an orator, the likes of which is rarely seen at this level of political life. The Dukakis people knew this as well, which is why they were able to work in conjunction with the convention organizers to push Jackson’s speech late into the night. Out of primetime.

When early favorite Gary Hart withdrew from the race due to a sex scandal, the race really came down to Jackson and Dukakis, as Gore and Gephardt only earned a smattering of delegates. And it’s amazing, in hindsight, how much of a real race this was. While Dukakis edged Jackson out 1,427 to 1,406, this was at a time when the conventions still mattered and delegate trading on the floor could still determine the outcome. Jackson earned 7 million raw votes to Dukakis’ 10 million.

But the other candidates all fell in line behind Dukakis out of fear of Jackson’s radical rhetoric. At a minimum, the Jackson camp believed that his showing was certainly enough to earn him a spot on the ticket as the Vice Presidential nominee, but this, too, was a bridge too far, and Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen was chosen instead.

So back to our buddy Bill.

The reason the ‘88 campaign was such a pivotal time for the Arkansas governor was that Republicans were able to exploit Dukakis’ perceived weakness on crime. Law and order had become a central theme in the Republican narrative since Nixon, and the ever escalating war on drugs and fear mongering in the media and Republican messaging exacerbated the contrast between Dukakis and Bush. For those old enough to remember, many consider the now infamous race baiting Willie Horton ad to be the seminal moment in the ‘88 campaign that doomed Dukakis.

So, Bill Clinton made what at the time was considered a huge gamble as a Democrat. He decided to ‘out-tough’ the tough-on-crime Republican Party. The Clinton team believed that the future of the Party was among white suburban voters, or so-called Reagan Democrats. In his scathing book on Clinton’s relationship with black America, titled Superpredator, Nathan J. Robinson made this observation of Clinton’s political calculus:

“Because black voters were reliably loyal to the party, there was nothing to gain electorally from the pursuit of racial equality. The irony, of course, is that this meant selling out the party’s strongest supporters precisely because of the strength of their support.”

Robinson dedicates an entire chapter of his book to the moment that Clinton seized upon to one up the Republicans and put to rest the idea that Democrats were soft. In it, he details how Clinton called for the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, an inmate who committed heinous murders that culminated in him executing the officer he was voluntarily surrendering to. Rector then tried to kill himself. After failing to do so, he had surgery to repair his wounds and doctors essentially performed a full frontal lobotomy.

It was known that Rector was psychologically impaired prior to his deeds, and the surgery left him with the mental capacity of a small child. Very few believed that he would receive the death penalty as a result. Time and again, both the courts and the parole board agreed that Rector was wholly incompetent and completely unaware of time, his surroundings or reality. Here’s Robinson:

“As Rector’s execution date approached in 1992, Clinton was fighting for his political life. The New Hampshire Democratic primary was about to be held, and Clinton was facing a scandal that threatened to derail his presidential candidacy. An Arkansas woman named Gennifer Flowers had come forward to allege that she and the Governor had engaged in a 12 year affair, and that she had audio tapes to prove it.”

By this time, Clinton had already reversed course during his tenure, reducing the number of commutations and increasing the number of scheduled executions. His reputation was already solidified, but Clinton believed the Rector decision would forever put to rest any talk of softness toward criminals. Despite calls from friends, colleagues, party members and even an appeal from Jesse Jackson, Clinton not only moved forward with the execution, but left the campaign trail to oversee it personally. A rare move that served the exact purpose that was intended.

Robinson puts forward a chilling detail of Rector’s final moments to illustrate how detached from reality Rector was:

“When he had his last meal, Rector set the dessert aside for later, even though there wouldn’t be a later.”

Amnesty International was quoted, saying Clinton wasn’t, “dying to be President, but he is killing to be President.”

By this point, the DLC was firmly behind Clinton, and he was heavily involved in crafting its platform for the election. As Geismer writes in Left Behind:

“Playing to the racialized fears of many white moderates, the DLC adopted an even more punitive position on crime, calling for heightened mandatory minimums for gun-related crimes and military-style boot camps for young first-time offenders convicted of nonviolent crimes. The platform also asserted the importance of promoting strong family values, strengthening the heteronormative two-parent family, and intensifying child support laws and access to day care.”

Recall from our discussions surrounding Bernard Harcourt’s book The Illusion of Free Markets how this approach to criminal justice and criminalizing poverty closely aligns with the free market ideology of neoliberalism. The idea that the only realm government can and should be effective is in the punitive and carceral sphere. The DLC was soaking it all in, with Clinton as its principal author, rebuilding the platform of the Democratic Party so completely around the teachings of the Chicago School it would be difficult to distinguish between Democrats and Republicans from this point forward on the vast majority of policy issues.

There’s no question this alignment would lead to the culture wars we live with today and the fracture within Congress under Newt Gingrich, an important player in our next chapter. With so much in common between the parties, the Republicans were going to have to find new ways to distinguish themselves and push the party further to the right. But, for the time being, the election of Bill Clinton in 1992 marked the official death of the New Deal and Great Society era in the United States. Reagan might have pointed to the shining city on the hill, but it was Bill Clinton who showed us the way.

But the most important thing I want to leave you with is that nothing is inevitable. We always have a choice. And if you don’t believe me, revisit Jesse Jackson’s 1988 Convention Speech.

Here endeth Part Two of The Clinton Years.

In some ways, this episode covers familiar territory, as much of Bill Clinton’s legacy was re-litigated during both of Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential bids. Her husband’s well publicized blow up at Black Lives Matter protesters, along with the work of folks like Michelle Alexander and others, helped shine a light on the pernicious criminal justice policies of the Clinton administration.

Less understood is the negative and enduring impact of Clinton’s economic policies, a reflection of how indoctrinated into the cult of neoliberalism both parties and the mainstream media have become over the years. Many of the seeds planted by the Reagan administration, which still receives the bulk of the criticism from the left, were sown by the Clinton White House.

You know, I’ve spent a lot of time ripping Milton Friedman to shreds. (Gasp. No. Really? We hadn’t noticed.)

I’m a true believer that he has been one of the most destructive forces in U.S. politics and, as a result, in the world—to the extent that what happens here affects the entire planet. And there are many who think that Reagan was the poster child for neoliberalism and Friedman’s free market ideology. In reality, it’s Clinton.

• Friedman didn’t believe in deficits.

• He believed in school choice.

• Wanted to end welfare.

• Open up trade that allowed workers to work to the lowest common wage denominator.

As painful as it is to admit, that’s not Ronald Reagan. It’s not even George Bush. (Either of them.)

The most significant, pure, free market neoliberal to ever hold office is Bill Clinton. End of story. And it’s because of his record that I, among others, can so confidently look neoliberalism and free market ideology in the face and say it doesn’t work. It’s a fantasy. We tried it. It failed. It fucked poor people—especially people of color—for a generation or more.

We’ve bookended Bill Clinton’s career in the first two episodes, documenting his rise as governor of Arkansas and visionary among the New Democrats and, more recently, his work as head of a global foundation. In this final installment of our series, “The Clinton Years,” we evaluate the legacy of the Clinton presidency. When taken in totality, it can be overwhelming. What’s interesting is that, for the most part, the Clinton years evade authentic scrutiny among the mainstream media and punditry class, as well as the political class. To get an honest assessment of this era, one really needs to look at the alternative and progressive press. Here’s why.

Establishment Democrats and so-called liberal media pundits have a vested interest in promoting the 1990s as an era of great prosperity. And we’ll talk about that. First: because it twice had to defend Clinton’s policies in attempting to formulate a compelling narrative during his wife’s presidential bids. And, because Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have been carefully packaged and sold as intellectual liberals that cleaned up the mess left behind by reckless Republicans. It’s simply part of the brand.

On the flip side, the Republican machine and their right wing hounds from hell have always worked overtime to paint Clinton as an ineffective, draft-dodging, philandering liberal who raised taxes and divided Congress.

The real truth about the Clinton years is far uglier and more insidious.

Chapter Five

The first Black president.

When Toni Morrison called Bill Clinton the “first Black president,” it wasn’t intended as a compliment. Rather, it was merely an observation. One that she explained by saying:

“After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class…McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas. And when virtually all the African-American Clinton appointees began, one by one, to disappear, when the President’s body, his privacy, his unpoliced sexuality became the focus of the persecution, when he was metaphorically seized and body-searched, who could gainsay these black men who knew whereof they spoke? The message was clear: ‘No matter how smart you are, how hard you work, how much coin you earn for us, we will put you in your place or put you out of the place you have somehow, albeit with our permission, achieved. You will be fired from your job, sent away in disgrace, and—who knows?—maybe sentenced and jailed to boot. In short, unless you do as we say (i.e., assimilate at once), your expletives belong to us.’”

In the ‘90s, Clinton often appeared vulnerable to the vicious attacks of an obstreperous Republican-led Congress. Figures like Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey assaulted Clinton and his character in shocking ways that signified the end of so-called civility in Congress.

Clinton’s behavior was, is and will always be inexcusable. He’s a serial cheater who hung around with the likes of Jeffrey Epstein. He’s not a good person. But the way in which Republicans dragged him and his wife through the mud in the ‘90s, and forever after, has in some ways insulated them from criticism among many white and black liberals who viewed Republican harassment as even more tawdry than Clinton’s behavior. In short, they kind of felt bad for him.

But one of the great mysteries of the universe, outside of the ways in which Morrison characterized Clinton’s experiences as similar to those in the black community, is how his popularity among many black voters has endured.

Bill Clinton’s race baiting and abuse of the black community didn’t materialize over time. It was always there.

The second coming or “resurrection” of the Ku Klux Klan in 1915 was formalized in a ceremony at the foot of Stone Mountain in Georgia. The site would become a touchstone over the years for white nationalists who traveled far and wide to revel in its historic importance to their doctrine of evil. During Clinton’s first presidential campaign, his team organized a press conference at a correctional facility located at the base of Stone Hill. It was a small facility that only housed a few hundred inmates who were mostly young black men. The event was right before Super Tuesday in ‘92 and the location, given its relatively small size in the corrections world, was a curious choice, to put it generously. As Nathan J. Robinson writes in Superpredator:

“The photo shows a buoyant Clinton standing in front of black kids stored in a pen at the base of an infamous Confederate monument and pilgrimage site, only a year after its Klan picnics had finally stopped. For a clutch of white politicians to pose in front of black inmates would be mildly nauseating in the most innocuous of locales; that Clinton did it with a pair of open bigots at the entrance to the ‘Confederate Rushmore’ should violently churn the stomach.”

Bill Clinton was a southerner. He understood the optics. If a photograph could whistle, dogs would be barking all over the south.

Once in office, Clinton pursued an agenda that would further stigmatize welfare recipients, criminalize a generation of young black men and demonize the poor. Of primary importance to Clinton was to reform welfare. It was a promise that he had made in his earliest days of campaigning. Where he and some advisors believed that welfare could indeed be reformed and replaced by incentives to work, most of the New Democrats also believed that any reforms would need to be backstopped with health care, child care, job training and other support that allowed people to transition from welfare rolls to jobs.

As Clinton formulated his agenda, the Republicans were hard at work trying to tear it down and attack Clinton the moment he took office. The result was a midterm bloodbath. Aligning behind Newt Gingrich and his Contract with America, the Republicans picked up eight seats in the Senate and more than 50 seats in the House. It was a resounding victory for the Republican Party as Newt Gingrich took the gavel for the first time in four decades. As much as the Democrats were prepared for a fight, no one expected such a shellacking.

To counter the Gingrich revolution, Clinton decided to lean into it instead of fight it. To out-asshole the assholes in what his advisor Dick Morris would call triangulation. Reduce the deficit? How about a fucking surplus? Reduce social services? How about throwing people off welfare altogether? This kicked off a literal race to the bottom to see who could fuck poor people more. Republicans kept throwing welfare reform bills at Clinton, and he would veto them and propose even more awful measures. The final bill eviscerated welfare in the nation.

Remember. This is a Bill Clinton story. The man who feels your pain. Hero of the black community. Even Clinton’s advisors. Shalala. Rubin. Reich. The entire black congressional Caucus. National Organization of Women. The Rainbow Coalition. DLC members who had been with him in lockstep throughout his political journey. Everyone around him reminded him that he had a double digit lead over Bob Dole, a horrific candidate. Even Clinton knew it was bad. Yet, in a low energy press conference, President Bill Clinton squinted and winced, bit his lip, felt our pain and signed the bill into law.

Welfare became temporary. Two years and out was the mantra. In total, the bill imposed a five year lifetime cap on benefits. It created work requirements. It gave the power to the states to distribute benefits and cut the funding for them. In a Clinton-esque way of promoting the effectiveness of this awful bill, Bill and Hillary Clinton would point to the reduction in absolute number of recipients on the welfare rolls as proof that the system was working. It was evil logic. Moving off the rolls into a job was one thing. Being thrown off was another thing entirely.

Single mothers entered the workforce at historic rates, which they also promoted as a good thing. But they did so because they couldn’t exist on the benefits alone, so they had no choice. And without child care guarantees, their kids were left to their own devices. Another cruel consequence. And because work requirements were part of the package, black Americans in historically discriminatory work states often suffered the worst. As Robinson notes in Superpredator:

“Those who were successfully ‘moved to employment’ saw their earnings increase. But for others, conditions not only stagnated, but worsened. In particular, those at the ‘bottom of the bottom’ suffered. In the years since welfare reform, the percentage of families in extreme poverty increased by 50%.”

The administration continued to try and cover its bases by promoting entrepreneurship, credit and micro-finance as economic salvation for the poor. Despite the failure of ShoreBank and Grameen to meaningfully scale credit programs, Clinton would continually double down on similar initiatives like expanding the Women’s Self Empowerment Projects that Clinton also brought from Chicago to Arkansas and to the White House. A signature element of the WSEPs was, once again, micro-financing where the federal government would match personal savings accounts of female entrepreneurs in pilot programs throughout the country. Here’s Geismer, from Left Behind:

“The 2,350 participants were primarily women of color with children who received some sort of public assistance. In addition to making monthly deposits, the program required them to attend monthly economic literacy courses. The courses focused on skills like balancing a checkbook, making a budget, and how making small changes in habits, such as taking a sack lunch to work, could add up to big differences.”

The Clinton team rolled out the usual playbook of finding a singular standout and parading her around the country in press conferences to encourage support for the program. When all was said and done, “48 percent of the participants saved less than a hundred dollars.”

Nearly every single Democrat in office and even in Clinton’s administration was horrified by the welfare reform bill. Everyone, it seemed, but Clinton himself.

Chapter Six

Housing. The American nightmare.

Bill Clinton would continue to strangle the necks of the working poor, moving bill after bill through Congress, designed to force the country deeper into neoliberal economic thinking. Welfare reform was just one of the bricks that needed to be taken out of the wall. Another was housing.

Housing for the poor had long been a disgrace in the United States. No one seemed to have a solution that worked across the board. Public housing suffered from underinvestment and corruption, and both parties were incapable of addressing the issue. The Milton Friedman wing of economists didn’t believe in it at all, but thought that, if anything, a voucher system would be superior to purely subsidized housing. Very similar to the neoliberal belief system surrounding school choice.

Clinton once again went a step further and would once again tie market incentives to a benefit program. The Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act passed in 1998 made employment a precondition for housing, which was obviously problematic for the elderly, chronically unemployed and uneducated, disabled and infirmed population. It seemed Clinton wouldn’t be happy until every welfare recipient in the country was cast out of the system entirely. And, to make matters worse, he went yet another step further and tied public housing to his anti-crime policies as well by introducing something called the “one-strike” rule.

The so-called “one-strike” rule where residents could be evicted for the accusation of crime was already in existence under Reagan, but Clinton went further to include guests of residents as well. Countless stories of elderly residents being evicted because their children or grandchildren were accused of criminality began cropping up across the country as a result. Here’s Michelle Alexander speaking at a Haymarket Books event and describing her indignation at the black community’s ongoing support for the Clintons:

“As someone who had spent more than a decade working on issues related to mass incarceration and had also spent years representing victims of racial profiling and police brutality… and who had worked with people who were victimized directly… by the policies of the Clinton era; people who were evicted from their homes as a result of Clinton’s ‘One strike and you’re out’ policy; people who could not return home to their families because of the Clinton administration’s rule barring people with criminal record from public housing, making it possible for people returning home from prison to have nowhere to go; the Clinton administration support for the ban on even food stamps for people who were convicted of drug felonies… it was difficult for me to watch Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton going into black churches and being welcomed and all of the fanfare surrounding them in the black community knowing that black incarceration rates soared during his administration… that he embraced the War on Drugs and escalated it beyond what his Republican predecessors had even dreamed possible.”

Poverty stricken people in cities across America were thrown from the frying pan into the fire with the elimination of crucial benefits and often unrealistic work requirements, but the Clinton administration had yet another market-based response: To loosen lending standards, lowering rates and encouraging home ownership. And it worked for a while. Until it didn’t. We all know what happened next when Wall Street and the private markets got involved.

The lead up to this was not entirely Clinton’s fault. The loosening of credit standards started the ball rolling, but much of the initial deal flow came through the auspices of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which plowed billions of dollars of home and small business loans to low-income borrowers. It was an admirable plan, presuming interest rates stayed low and there was a modicum of underwriting standards.

But another plan was afoot on Wall Street, which was developing a serious taste for increased risk. Reagan-era tax cuts, Clinton-era deregulation, NAFTA. The ‘90s was a banner decade for corporate America, and it was about to triple down on risk. Here’s a quick overview of a series of bad cascading decisions that would ultimately unleash the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Sanford Weill, one of the titans of the banking industry, was a close ally of the Clinton administration. Weill and others were pushing for reforms in the banking industry to allow for greater consolidation and lending flexibility. So, the Clinton administration used the CRA as a carrot to incentivize bankers to cooperatively lend money to low-credit lenders for homes and small businesses.

The more loans they gave out, the greater the consideration they were given when presenting big time mergers. Ultimately, the scheme worked, unleashing what Geismer calls “a historic wave of consolidation.”

Then, along came Phil Gramm, one of the worst people in the world. In future episodes, we’re going to talk more about this asshole. For now, suffice to say he was behind the scheme to break down the wall between commercial and investment banking activities by repealing a Depression-era law known as Glass-Steagall. Essentially, this allowed investment banks to tap into consumer and business deposits and leverage it into the markets. At the time, it was sold by Clinton as a necessary step to modernize the financial system to compete in the next century.

Here’s where we have to project past the Clinton years. Remember the two things we mentioned that are critical in terms of low credit applicants: (1) Low interest rates and (2) rigorous underwriting standards.

Low interest rates stayed around for a while. But, almost immediately, underwriting standards were loosened and, thanks to an invention by a banker named Lou Ranieri, known as the mortgage-backed securities, home mortgages became the hottest investment in banking in the 2000s.

But, at least interest rates were still low enough that people could afford their mortgages. For a while.

For the next part, let’s hand it over to Matt Taibbi from his incredible book Griftopia:

“In June 2004, just a few months after he encouraged Americans to shun fixed-rate mortgages for adjustable-rate mortgages, [Federal Reserve Chairman] Alan Greenspan raised rates for what would be the first of seventeen consecutive times.”

That’s right. This motherfucker, who helped design the deregulation era under Clinton and who stayed on during the beginning of the Bush years, told the American people to take out adjustable loans because rates would stay low. Then, he raised them seventeen fucking times, leading to the largest housing bubble and crisis in the nation’s history.

Chapter Seven

Clinton’s criminal injustice system.

Criminalizing poverty is one of the biggest and worst legacies of the Clinton era. It began early in his administration before the midterm elections with the passage of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, a pet initiative of Joe Biden since the 1970s. It was a wholesale and comprehensive suite of reforms that elevated the worst parts of Nixon and Reagan’s War on Drugs and contained shockingly punitive measures for black and brown people in America who were victims of systemic oppression.

As Robinson writes:

“The crime bill overflowed with new provisions and programs. It allocated nearly $10 billion for the construction of new prisons, expanded the number of death-penalty eligible federal crimes from two to fifty-eight, eliminated a statute that prohibited the execution of mentally incapacitated defendants, created special deportation courts for non-citizens accused of ‘engaging in terrorist activity,’ added new mechanisms for tracking sex offenders after they had served their sentences, introduced ‘three strikes’ law that gave mandatory life sentences for third offenses, gave $10.8 billion dollars to local police departments to hire 100,000 new officers, introduced ‘truth in sentencing’ requirements and allowed children as young as thirteen to be tried as adults.”

The sweeping reform set in motion a wave of activity that stressed the justice system. And it not only took aim at low level offenders and impoverished citizens trapped in a cycle of poverty, it made life even more impossible for the incarcerated during and after their sentences.

Prisoner Education

College funding for inmates was stripped away as Pell Grants were eliminated for prisoners.

Again, Robinson:

“In 1994, 71% of prisons had offered associate’s degree programs, while by 1998 only 37% did. Likewise with bachelor's programs, which dropped from 48% of prisons in 1994 to 20% in 1998. Altogether, over 350 prison college programs disappeared in just a few years. Among the 1994 crime bill’s many heartless initiatives, the prisoner Pell Grant elimination is perhaps comparatively among the less significant. But it stands out for its sheer pointless mean-spiritedness.”

Capital Punishment

Judges were stripped of their ability to fix unsound convictions.

Evidence was clear that mistakes, especially in cases involving death row inmates, were common. In a Columbia Law School study examining death penalty cases from 1973 to 1995, it was found that courts found reversible errors in 7 out of 10 cases. The new law prevented judges from re-examining court decisions of such magnitude, theoretically condemning thousands of inmates to die based on faulty convictions. As Robinson writes:

“Until this time, 73% of death penalty cases reviewed found that the death penalty was unwarranted and 9% of the defendants were proven innocent.”

Prisoner Rights

Clinton also signed the Prison Litigation Reform Act, making it harder for inmates to file lawsuits.

Under the new act, prisoners had to demonstrate physical abuse or violence so extraordinary that isolation, rape, strip searches, being forced to stand nude for hours—none of these technically qualified.

Housing

Clinton’s interventions weren’t confined to the prison industrial complex. They even extended into housing.

One especially cruel executive policy, meted out by HUD, was to hold residents and even their guests accountable for so-called criminal acts, not necessarily convictions. So, if a resident was arrested or charged with a crime, or let’s say an elderly resident’s grandchild was charged, the resident could be evicted without an arrest or conviction. Even if they were found innocent, it would be up to HUD officials to decide and, in many cases and because of the “one-strike” rule, people were simply thrown out into the street.

Here’s Michelle Alexander from The New Jim Crow to explain in more detail:

“In 1996, President Clinton, in an effort to bolster his ‘tough on crime’ credentials, declared that public housing agencies should exercise no discretion when a tenant or guest engages in criminal activity, particularly if it is drug-related. In his 1996 State of the Union address, he proposed ‘One Strike and You’re Out’ legislation, which strengthened eviction rules and strongly urged that drug offenders be automatically excluded from public housing based on their criminal records. He later declared, ‘If you break the law, you no longer have a home in public housing, one strike and you’re out. That should be law everywhere in America.’”

“Three Strikes”

As if one strike wasn’t enough, Clinton also fought for the “three strikes and you’re out” law as early as 1994. It was so well received by Republicans that it easily cleared passage in the Crime Bill, resulting in the explosion of mass incarceration in the nation. So much so, the country could barely keep up with the construction of new prisons despite $16 billion being authorized for new prisons to be built, and leading to the wave of privatized prisons to fill the gap. Of course, 90% of all the new inmates from this period on were black and Hispanic.

We covered much of the fallout from the ‘94 Crime Bill in our mass incarceration episode and, thanks to intellectuals like Michelle Alexander, we have a clear understanding of just how devastating Clinton’s policies have been in black communities. What’s astounding, all these years later and with clear evidence to show how horrific this era was, Bill Clinton was still on the defensive during his wife’s campaign in 2016.

“I had an assault weapons ban in it. I had money for inner city kids for out of school activities. We had 110,000 police officers so we could [inaudible] people on the street not in these military vehicles and the police would look like the people they were policing. We did all of that. And Biden said, ‘You can’t pass this bill, the Republicans will kill it if you don’t put more sentencing in.’ I talked to a lot of African American groups. They thought black lives mattered. They said, ‘Take this bill because our kids are being shot in the streets by gangs.’ We had thirteen year-olds kids planning their own funerals. She doesn’t want to hear any of that. [Pointing at a protester.] You know what else she doesn’t want to hear? Because of that bill, we had a 25 year low on crime, a 33 year low in the murder rate, and—listen to this—because of that and the background check law, we had a 46 year low in the deaths of people by gun violence, and who do you think those lives were? That mattered! Whose lives were saved that mattered?”

Allow me to respond point-by-point before we move on.

• He blamed Biden for the sentencing aspect, but he was the president.

• He further militarized the streets to punish black Americans for low-level crimes and nonviolent drug crimes while cocaine using Wall Street bros made movies about their drug use.

• Violent and nonviolent crime rates were already declining in every industrialized nation around the world in the 1990s. Only the United States increased prison populations, to the extent that we became the most incarcerated nation on the planet. (Five-percent of the population with 25% of the world’s incarcerated population.)

• Gun violence dropped because of the assault weapons ban. That could have stood alone without the draconian measures surrounding it in this bill.

• “Some” African American groups wanted tougher policing in the streets, but the vast majority of black organizations tried to stop Clinton from signing this bill.

Chapter Eight

It’s the economy, asshole.

“The era of big government is over.” -Bill Clinton. 1996, SOTU Address

One of the things about the Republican Party that frustrated the likes of Milton Friedman was the growth of the federal budget, particularly with respect to the military. Big government was supposed to be a Democrat thing. So, as Clinton assumed the presidency, it was considered a huge departure to speak about reducing the size of government, eliminating federal jobs, cutting welfare programs and the like. This stance sparked a competitive wave among Republicans, like Dick Armey, who counted a letter from Milton Friedman as one of his most prized possessions and the summer of 1969 at the University of Chicago as the best summer of his life. (Yes, in the episode, we played a clip from Bryan Adams.)

Armey was instrumental in creating two contracts. One internal, one external. The internal contract was Grover Norquist’s tax pledge. Every incoming Republican into Congress was asked to sign a pledge that they would vote against any new tax increases. The other was Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America that contained a number of pledges to the nation, including a promise to balance the budget. Thus began a race to see who could cut more and be the better free market neoliberal. Here’s Howard Zinn:

“Reduction of the annual deficit in order to achieve a ‘balanced budget’ became an obsession of the Clinton administration. But, since Clinton didn’t want to raise taxes on the wealthy, or to cut funds for the military, the only alternative was to sacrifice the poor, the children, the aged—to spend less for health care, for food stamps, for education, for single mothers. Two examples of this appeared early in Clinton’s second administration, in the spring of 1997:

• From the New York Times: “A major element of President Clinton’s education plan—a proposal to spend $5 billion to repair the nation’s crumbling schools—was among the items quietly killed in last week’s agreement to balance the federal budget…”

• From the Boston Globe: “After White House intervention, the Senate yesterday… Rejected a proposal… to extend health insurance to the nation’s 10.5 million uninsured children… Seven lawmakers switched their votes… after senior White House officials… called and said the amendment would imperil the delicate budget agreement.”

It was essential to the Clinton administration to have early wins and payoffs to shrinking the size of government and eliminating the deficit. Payoffs would only be measured heretofore in terms of economic growth. The idea that America was booming was a central theme of the Clinton narrative and, if one judged by Wall Street and corporate America metrics, there was a good deal of truth to this sentiment.

It all depends on one’s definition of success. Howard Zinn, for one, took a different view:

“It was possible to say that the U.S. economy was ‘healthy’—but only if you considered the richest part of the population. Meanwhile, 40 million people were without health insurance (the number having risen by 33% in the ‘90s), and infants died of sickness and malnutrition at a rate higher than that of any other industrialized country. There seemed to be unlimited funds for the military, but people who performed vital human services, in health and education, had to struggle to barely survive.”

Back to our friend Bernard Harcourt, to let these words ring true. The neoliberal mentality is that the government is only effective in the punitive arena. So it tracks that military spending would increase while the Clinton administration kept a tight grip on the budget. These were true believers in Milton Friedman’s work. Clearing the way for the free market will allow private enterprise to step into social welfare and health care and perform services driven by the invisible hand and spirit of competition. A free market provides for all through magic.

The New Democrats were now in charge, and it was time to bring their concepts to life through legislation. Tasked with turning campaign promises into policy were DLC leaders like the Roberts—Rubin and Reich—Andrew Cuomo as the assistant secretary of HUD, Domestic Policy Chair Carol Rasco, Gene Sperling of the Economic Development Council and others. One of the first domestic initiatives they wanted to revitalize and improve was the concept of Enterprise Zones that surfaced under the prior administration, but was shot down by Bush because it was seen as beneficial to black people in cities, so fuck them. Amirite?

The Clinton team revised the plan to identify poor and dangerous urban areas and target them with a suite of economic development policy measures. This is where I have to take a step back and try to be fair. There were committed policy wonks building these plans and looking to make real change. I’ve criticized Clinton personally for his false opportunism at the expense of the black community, but the same cannot be said about the early members of his administration. They were true believers and would-be reformers who had it all mapped out on paper.

The Clinton version of the DOA Enterprise Zones was re-skinned as Empowerment Zones, and the administration went full force to sell it to America through a competitive bidding process. Municipalities were charged with designing the best program to fit their needs, with the promise that the federal government would supply funding, tax breaks, incentives and fulfill requests specific to these designated areas.

Some officials advocated for a suite of strictly fiscal incentives. Others, like Andrew Cuomo, believed that “breaks had to be paid with increased social services like job training, education, nutrition, day care, and affordable housing,” writes Geismer. “These services would be delivered in a block grant approach that echoed the urban policies of the administrations of Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.”

The idea of bringing local groups together to tailor bids in a competitive process seemed like a great idea, and there was merit to it. One size fits all programs had failed miserably during the urban renewal years of the 1970s. But the competitive aspect and the two-tiered proposed system, with only ten full awards and hundreds of bids that would be acknowledged as sort of honorable mentions, meant it was destined to be byzantine, complicated and dependent upon the private sector to weigh in heavily as partners. The New Democrats obviously saw this as a win because private sector involvement alleviated budgetary demands from the feds.

Ultimately, the Empowerment Zone program passed muster. Unfortunately, it was missing the important social trimmings that would have let municipalities feast on the rewards. To pass the budget as a whole, the Clinton administration marginally increased taxes on corporations but cut a slew of poverty programs, from Head Start to Food Stamps. Also missing from the campaign promise days was funding for critical infrastructure.

The result was a mostly fiscal oriented development package that relied heavily on the involvement of the private sector, and was missing any semblance of physical and social infrastructure needs that would support the communities the Empowerment Zone businesses were designed to serve. Despite the well publicized fact from the Rodney King incident that shone a light on Los Angeles, the city was not among the winning bids. New York City, Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Detroit, Kansas City, the Mississippi Delta and the Kentucky Highlands were chosen. (L.A. would later be awarded a monetary consolation prize.)

Missing from the equation, as Clinton well knew from his experience promoting ShoreBank, was the ability for businesses within Empowerment Zones to access credit. Again, Geismer:

“The programs collectively treated poverty and racial discrimination as a market failure. Their main architects saw a lack of access to capital and credit—not the evisceration of the social safety net, rising incarceration, and historical patterns of segregation—as the primary problem poor communities of color faced.”

So the committee appended a proposal a year later called the Community Development Financial Institutions fund, or CDFI. Perhaps the biggest champion behind the scenes was Robert Rubin, who believed in market solutions as much as any neoliberal Milton Friedman acolyte who ever existed. The fund would directly invest tens of millions of dollars, then leverage additional supporting funds from private financial institutions that had to be sold on the proposition that these credit packages would be profitable.

The media loved everything about it. Republicans were even enthusiastic, to a degree, about the market oriented approach of the combined programs. And some areas made the most out of it, such as Harlem as representative Charlie Rangel, who was probably the most vocal advocate for Empowerment Zones and thus the most prepared to leverage all that it was worth. But in the end, all of the sweat, the proposals and white papers, lobbying efforts, budget machinations amounted to very little in return. Like ShoreBank had done in Chicago, then in Arkansas, Clinton trotted out singular entrepreneurial success stories as evidence the program worked. All you needed was credit, a business plan and determination. Or, you know. Bootstraps. Final word to Geismer:

“Despite the effusive language that Clinton used to describe institutions like ShoreBank and initiatives like the CRA and Empowerment Zones, these programs all remained very small in comparison to the very large problems of concentrated poverty and racial segregation that they were intended to address.”

Chapter Nine

Border wars.

Let’s review some familiar territory. It was actually in our immigration episode that I promised to unpack the Clinton years, so let’s recap what we learned in that episode. You will recall that it was Clinton-era policies that marked a seminal shift in our treatment of immigrants in this country. Clinton’s immigration reform measures demonized foreign born immigrants and criminalized their status in a way that even Republicans had never even dreamed of doing:

“All Americans, not only in the state’s most heavily affected, but in every place in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants; the public service they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. That’s why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border guards by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, by borrowing welfare benefits to illegal aliens.

 

“In the budget I will present to you, we will try to do more to speed the deportation of illegal aliens who are arrested for crimes to better identify illegal aliens in the workforce, as recommended by the commission headed by former congresswoman Barbara Jordan. We are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it.” -Bill Clinton. 1995 SOTU Address

The Crime Bill had set the table with severely punitive measures that would rip apart families and incarcerate waves of black and brown youth for decades. So the mechanisms were in place to punish immigrants as well, but first the administration had to criminalize their existence. Clinton accomplished this with two separate bills. Remember, the first was called the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act in response to the Oklahoma City bombings.

(In the Immigration episode, we noted how interesting it was to pass a terrorism law to go after immigrants because of a white guy who blew up a building and murdered people.)

And the other was the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. As a refresher, here’s an excerpt from a Cornell University report on the bill to describe it:

“The Act was designed to improve border control by imposing criminal penalties for racketeering, alien smuggling and the use or creation of fraudulent immigration-related documents and increasing interior enforcement by agencies charged with monitoring visa applications and visa abusers. The Act also allows for the deportation of undocumented immigrants who commit a misdemeanor or a felony.

 

“The Act mandates that immigrants who are unlawfully present in the U.S. for 180 days, but under 365 days, must remain outside the United States for three years unless pardoned. If they remain in the United States for 365 days or more, they must stay outside the United States for ten years, unless they obtain a waiver. However, if they return to the U.S. without the pardon, they must wait 10 years until they may apply for a waiver.”

Okay. So it sounds kind of rational, right? But again, we have to think about how people actually live, behave, work and travel. We covered the concept of Net Migration, which is the number of people who immigrate versus emigrate. Come in versus leave. What this bill did was effectively eliminate the incentive to leave. It was extremely common for immigrant labor to move back and forth across the border with the harvests and seasons.

This law created a trap. Leaving meant you might never be able to return. So, returning before the artificial time frame became illegal. So did staying longer than a work visa. An entire swath of the labor pool was caught in Clinton’s spider web by design. Damned if they stayed. Damned if they left.

That’s why I say Clinton criminalized their existence.

Then he passed measures that applied the harshest elements of the criminal justice system as enforcement tools. And for Mexican workers, it was even more precarious, because Reagan’s drug policy contributed to the build up of massive and dangerous cartels across the border. NAFTA solidified wage slavery in Mexico, as well, on the heels of the Mexican debt crisis in the 1980s, also the result of our punitive global banking policies. So we helped foster a lawless culture driven by drug lords, robbed Mexico’s treasury,  locked down the border, allowed American companies to set up shop in Mexico and plunder low wage workers and criminalized their existence in the United States when they tried to flee.

Chapter Ten

Closing the book on Clinton.

Did Bill Clinton have the best of intentions throughout his career? A better question would be, does it matter? Because the answer is, no. Nor do I think he could reconcile his intentions with his actions. The same pathology that allowed him to stare into the camera and say he did not have sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky is the same pathology that allowed him to look into the eyes of black America and say he was here to help.

By the end of his administration, Clinton seemed unmoved by the disturbing trends of mass incarceration, spiking rates of extreme poverty and upheaval in the black community due to housing and welfare reform. The rich were getting richer, inflation was under control and Wall Street was kicking ass. And he was going to end his term with a budget surplus. It was the ultimate neoliberal formula and definition of success.

But Binyamin Appelbaum offers a different perspective on these so-called achievements in his book The Economist’s Hour:

“The government’s austerity during the Clinton years is often listed among the reasons the economy boomed, because it helped to hold down interest rates. But the government’s greater contribution to economic growth in the 1990s was its spending in earlier decades on education, research and infrastructure.

 

“Americans who entered their prime working years in the 1990s were far more likely to have college degrees than adults in the rest of the developed world. The rise of Silicon Valley was a triumph of government-sponsored research, government investment in infrastructure, and the government’s development of human capital.

 

“The austerity of the Clinton years, by contrast, meant the government was reducing its investment in future growth.”

Despite the total failure of his market based and micro-finance poverty initiatives to lift up the poorest among us with the help of public private partnerships, he doubled down at the end of his term. Here’s an excerpt from a HUD promotion video titled “Now is the Time: Remembering Places Left Behind in the New Economy.”

“Job training opportunities are being provided by MetLife, Microsoft, Gateway, Owens-Corning, the North American Steel Framing Alliance, Worthington Industries and Amity Incorporated. But government must play a role in providing incentives for these companies. President Clinton understands government’s role and has proposed legislation to create APIC, America’s Private Investment Corporation providing new markets tax credits and funding to do major economic investment in inner cities.”

No matter how many times public/private partnerships and tax incentives fail the working class and poverty stricken parts of the country, team Clinton just kept beating that same drum until the very end.

And, despite the overwhelming evidence that mass incarceration was literally killing black communities, particularly in the case of low level drug offenses, Clinton couldn’t even muster the courage with the ultimate weapon a president possesses. Here’s Robinson:

“In the final days of his presidency, Clinton indicated that he was considering offering “a broad clemency or amnesty for non-violent drug offenders who had served long prison terms… But when the list of 140 pardons and commutations was announced during the final few days of the presidency, only a couple of dozen were drug offenders… Internal records show that Clinton considered, and rejected, a proposal to free nearly 500 prisoners.”

There’s still so much we didn’t cover about the Clinton years. How he used the cover of wars in Iraq, Bosnia and Somalia to distract from his sex scandals. How he used his pardoning power for white collar criminal friends. How he destroyed Haiti and exploited African nations in crisis. How he championed the cause of charter schools and undercut teacher’s unions. Deregulated the telecommunications industry, leading to a wave of consolidation and mega mergers and resulting in the near total control of the media by a handful of large corporations. How he put the future of healthcare reform in the hands of his wife and a working group that produced a report so confusing even Democrats didn’t understand how to support it. As a result, there was no healthcare reform, so when Clinton purged millions of Americans from the welfare rolls, millions subsequently lost their medical coverage.

Were there bright spots? Sure. Clinton successfully passed the Assault Weapons Ban. His administration broke up Microsoft in one of the last successful attempts to hold a mega corporation accountable in the United States. And upper middle class white suburbanites thrived. But on the whole, inequality worsened in the ‘90s, more than any other decade in American history.

We have to see the world as it is. Reconcile hard truths about our past if we’re to move boldly into the future. The Clinton years were an unmitigated disaster in terms of social and economic justice. Insofar as Clinton’s policies were also the neoliberal dream scenario, it provides clear evidence of the failure of the free market Chicago School doctrine. We cannot allow establishment Democrats to lionize the Clinton era just because the stock market was cooking and white people did rather well. This type of nostalgia is dangerous and is why Progressives cringe at the very thought of claiming these years as an example of Democratic prowess and competency.

It’s time to stop defending the least worst options on the table.

The only enduring policies throughout our brief history that work are progressive.

It’s time to close the door on the Clinton era for good.

Here endeth the lesson.