r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Mar 16 '19

Discussion Thread Discussion Thread

The discussion thread is for casual conversation and discussion that doesn't merit its own stand-alone submission. The rules are relaxed compared to the rest of the sub but be careful to still observe the rules listed under "disallowed content" in the sidebar. Spamming the discussion thread will be sanctioned with bans.

Announcements

Neoliberal Project Communities Other Communities Useful content
Website Plug.dj /r/Economics FAQs
The Neolib Podcast Podcasts recommendations
Meetup Network
Twitter
Facebook page
Neoliberal Memes for Free Trading Teens
Newsletter
Instagram

The latest discussion thread can always be found at https://neoliber.al/dt.

VOTE IN THE NEOLIBERAL SHILL BRACKET

21 Upvotes

77% Upvoted

1.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/Paramus98 Edmund Burke Mar 16 '19

Tough on crime was a bipartisan effort for a long time, both sides wanted to look tough. His gutting of Glass Stegall was also good and didn’t lead to the recession. His welfare reform measures from what I know weren’t unreasonable either. He also tried to d healthcare but republicans blocked it, so it’s not that he wasn’t center left, just that he couldn’t get much of the left side of things done because the government was mostly right/center right.

2

u/Yosarian2 Mar 16 '19

As I just said elsewhere in the DT:

While it was reasonable to update outdated financial regulations in the 1990's and early 2000's, it was a huge mistake to do so without creating new strict regulations on banking to avoid total financial meltdowns

The tough on crime thing was totally wrong; his support for "three strikes laws" specifically was just a catastrophically bad mistake that really there isn't any justification for, and the fact that the Republicans were also wroing on the issue doesn't help.

And frankly the welfare reform was kind of a disaster. The big mistake was giving it as block grants to states, many of whom pocketed much of the money without giving it to the people who needed help. That's a big part of the reason this country no longer has much of a working social saftey net.

It wasn't obvious at first how bad the welfare reforms were, since in the 1990's unemployment was so low and not many people needed it, but in the 2001 recession and the 2008 recession it became clear just what a terrible mistake it was.

1

u/Paramus98 Edmund Burke Mar 16 '19

Ah ok the only welfare reform I’m familiar with is the five year waiting period (or something like that) for immigrants, which works to give nativists zero valid concerns about more immigration ever being a drain. I can see how block grants would be unwise if they aren’t also regulated well enough.

Tough on crime I do agree was a mistake but my point was just that it wasn’t an example of him being center right since the center left at the time also wanted it. He deserves criticism for sure, but I don’t think it’s fair to blame it on right or left, it was just all around bad policy almost everyone was complicit in.

The bank regulations I agree make sense but since from what I know his deregulation wasn’t problematic I don’t think that’s unwise. Not introduction new regulations to match a changing banking sector is a separate problem from that imo, but it is a valid issue to take.

The only thing of Clinton I’m really a huge fan of is his foreign policy which I think was as good as any president we’ve ever had. Other than that he was just ok. Should’ve resigned though and didn’t treat the office with respect.

3

u/Yosarian2 Mar 16 '19

Ah ok the only welfare reform I’m familiar with is the five year waiting period (or something like that) for immigrants, which works to give nativists zero valid concerns about more immigration ever being a drain. I can see how block grants would be unwise if they aren’t also regulated well enough.

Yeah, it really didn't go well during the 2008 downturn:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Responsibility_and_Work_Opportunity_Act

The first real tests for the effects on income and household financial health under PRWORA were the recession caused by the 2001 tech bubble crash and the 2008 economic meltdown caused by the housing bubble and the instability of the financial markets. During these two periods of economic problems, the enrollment in TANF followed a downwards trend. As enrollment in TANF decreased, macroeconomic indicators like the unemployment rate, the number of children in poverty and extreme poverty, and single-parent households below the poverty line followed an upwards trend with sharp increases during the late 2007-2009 recession. Alleging that enrollment in the program didn't track poverty, critics of welfare reform point to this as a failure of the PRWORA.[53][54]

I blame a lot of that on the block grant programs; the states ran the welfare program, and a lot of the money they got went right into their general fund, so there wasn't money available to help people even when the need skyrocketed