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| President Clinton |
Bill Clinton, the man who had a plan in 1992 to cut the deficit, reform welfare and be a friend to entrepreneurial capitalism is helping a guy with no plan, who doesn't think the debt is a problem and who routinely supports higher taxes on small businesses and Middle Class families.
The Big Dog worries about the $17 trillion deficit, made $5 trillion larger in four years by President Obama and Chris Murphy's support of a national health care plan, $1 trillion stimulus and abdication of Murphy's prime responsibility - to pass a federal budget. Murphy never mentions cutting spending, except for "discretionary spending," an pot of money he routinely drank from for pet projects.
The visit by Clinton does say something about Murphy's race against Republican Linda McMahon - that Democrats are still worried about losing this race. For all the media fawning about Murphy's performance during the four debates with McMahon, the truth is few undecided voters bothered watch the encounters. Even fewer probably read the media accounts of them, although I am grateful for knowing more about the Blunt Amendment. Bill Clinton is the most sought surrogate among Democrats, even more than the Obama's.
Nothing like a blast from the past to change the narrative and try to compare the once "Comeback Kid," with the "The Guy Who Has Spent His Whole Life Fighting for Health Care for Working People and Providing....."
Here we have a man even some Republicans admit had his moments of good policy. If anything, the appearance should demonstrate how Murphy is out of his league, despite his glib pre-packaged liberal answers to problems that don't exist.
On domestic policy, Murphy could learn a thing or two from the master.
Clinton understood that welfare had to include a component for self-reliance and the responsibility to get a job. Yet, Murphy made speeches and announced stimulus grants to local groups or towns, one in five Americans is now on food stamps. 47 million, or 15.7 per cent of the American population, are now in poverty, many of them children. It is the highest number since the 1960's. Clinton, for all his personal faults, was able to work with Conservatives to balance budgets and to take welfare apart. Jobs were created and welfare payments dried to a trickle.
Murphy talks the compromise game, but he voted almost exclusively with Democrats while they were in power. He denounced Republicans on the floor of the House and in one speech, said "America is not broke." It was an amazing statement, even though anyone who can add or subtract at the most rudimentary level knows our Gross National Output equals our debt, with no end in site or no Democrat willing to cut spending or reform entitlements.
One doubts that any media will bother to ask Murphy why he hasn't expressed outrage at the security lapses at the Libyan Consulate in Benghazi and outright lying by Hillary Clinton's State Department. As a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Murphy likes diminish our efforts in Iraq, but when the State Department dropped the ball and an Ambassador gets murdered, it somehow doesn't qualify for even a press release.
But, hey Bill Clinton is coming to town. That's the story - one footloose Social Security recipient with a young Congressman who skipped paying his bills, and then blamed it on his marriage.
Clinton will probably offer him some tips on what a blast Washington can be when you are a U.S. Senator.
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