Two competing scenarios, two sort of theories of what the 2014 mid term elections could be about. One theory was some of the challenges problems facing the Republican Party in 2012 would just sort of flow on into 2014. The other was that this would be a classic mid term election referendum on the incumbent president and with all that that entails. So two competing directions and it could have really gone either way. In terms of challenges facing the Republican Party some of them were with key voting groups, some of it was sort of their own, sort of some of the things they were doing just sort of a nutshell. The challenge of minority oters as we know that governor romney got 59 of the white vote and gosh nobodys ever gotten 59 of the white vote and lost a president ial election before and quite simply what was happening was the country is changing so much that its getting hard and the vote for congress was almost identical if youre losing the African American vote by 87 points and the l
23 million jobs created in millions moved out of poverty and the narrowing of the income inequality cap and the first legit surpluses in generations. How did it happen . How did the 1993 legit to that reduce the deficit get done . For the 1997 budget deal that balanced the budget unsecured historic surpluses westmark how to the earned income tax credit and the Childs Program that helps the poor and the working class families and pulled will millions into the middle class get done . Jean spurling and erskine roles are the Perfect People to answer these questions. Erskine bowles is to my left and joined the Clinton Administration in 1993 as the administrator of the Small Business administration and then moved to the white house as deputy chief of staff in 1994 and then chief of staff at the start of the Clinton Administration in 1997 until october, 1998. To keep them honest, and to add context to their consequential work is the associate professor of Political Science at the United State
Symposium hosted by the Clinton Foundation and Miller Center. It is a little over one hour. Please welcome msnbc contributor jonathan k parks and the Economic Policy panel. [applause] thank you very much. As the voice of god said, i am john [indiscernible] from the washington post. When president clinton took office on january 20, 19 93, the American Economy was in bad shape. Unemployment is high. The deficit is high. The National Debt was climbing even higher. The man who campaigned on cutting the deficit in half had a seemingly impossible task. The longest economic expansion in u. S. History a narrowing of the income inequality gap in the first Budget Surplus in generations. How did it happen . How did the budget deal of 1993 get done or the 1997 budget deal that balance the budget and secured these historic surpluses . How did the Child Health Insurance program that helped the poor and workingclass families and untold millions fold into the middle class and get done . Gene sperling
The fed was very accommodative, and we started to build a housing bubble which we burst in 2008, and now i think arguably in 2013 we may have created or at least started to create another equity bubble that in some areas, perhaps many some real estate markets, is also turning into a bubble. New york city, toronto, we were talking about this at lunch, other urban centers, especially those attractive to foreign buyers are seeing very rapid increases whereas in more rural areas thats not happening. So how do we, how do we respond to this, and what does this tell us about the future . One of the things thats emerged here is that the financial and real estate markets have in the United States and perhaps elsewhere have developed a kind of uncomfortable codependence with the central bank. That is, if markets, especially lets say equity markets in the last several years, are very resilient in the face of threats. We saw this in recent weeks where all the armwringing, handwringing and talk abo
Many of us gave him that opportunity. Many of our activists who are part of the leader of the coalition now they actually formed a forum. They were willing to take bashar on his promises to reform the country introduce it into the modern world and so on and so forth. Unfortunately theres a crack down in the damascus spring and then there was another moment after the assassination of hariri but the damascus situation and early on in the first 40 years i remember very well and i follows minute by minute. We were accepting the argument that they were an old guard and the regime etc. Etc. But after 50 years in power he became fully in charge. The system is highly centralized highly personalized and he immediately reverted to his fathers way of first saying you have external challenges that take precedence over domestic reform and second you were not going to introduce political reforms but introduce economic and he talked about the chinese model but nothing was meaningfully introduced to g