George Bush Sr. in My Life, by Bill Clinton
On Budget & Economy:
Increased national debt from $3T in 1988 to $4T in 1992
The problem with applying the traditional analysis to current conditions was that under Reagan and Bush, we had built a large structural deficit that persisted in good times and bad. When President Reagan took office, the national debt was $1 trillion.
It tripled during his eight years, thanks to the big tax cuts in 1981 and increases in spending. Under President Bush, the debt continued to increase again, by one-third, in just four years. Now it totaled $4 trillion. Annual interest payments on the deb
were the third-largest item in the federal budget after defense and Social Security.The deficit was the inevitable result of so-called supply-side economics, the theory that the more you cut taxes, the more the economy will grow, with the growth
producing more tax revenue at lower tax rates than previously had been collected at higher ones. Of course it didn't work, and the deficits exploded throughout the recovery of the 1980s.
Source: My Life, by Bill Clinton, p.458-459
Jun 21, 2004
On Foreign Policy:
1991: Returned asylum-seeking refugees from Haiti
On Jan.5, I announced that I'd temporarily continue Pres. Bush's policy of intercepting & returning Haitians who were trying to reach the US by boat, a policy I had strongly criticized during the election. After Haiti's elected president, Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, was overthrown by Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras in 1991, [many refugees fled].When the Bush administration, which appeared to be more sympathetic to Cedras than I was, began to return the refugees, there were loud protests from the human rights
community. I wanted to make it easier for Haitians to seek and obtain political asylum in the US, but was concerned that large numbers of them would perish in trying to get here, as about 400 had done just a week earlier. So, I said that, instead of
taking in all the Haitians who could survive the voyage to America, we would beef up our official presence in Haiti and speed up asylum claims there. In the meantime, for safety reasons, we would continue to stop the boats and return the passengers.
Source: My Life, by Bill Clinton, p.463-464
Jun 21, 2004
On Principles & Values:
1992: Saddam foiled in plotting his assassination in Kuwait
In June 1992, I ordered the military into action for the first time, firing twenty-three Tomahawk missiles into Iraq's intelligence headquarters, in retaliation for a plot to assassinate President George H. W. Bush during a trip he had made to Kuwait.
More than a dozen people involved in the plot had been arrested in Kuwait on April 13, one day before the former President had been scheduled to arrive. The materials in their possession were conclusively traced to Iraqi intelligence, and on
May 19 one of the arrested Iraqis confirmed to the FBI that the Iraqi intelligence service was behind the plot. Most of the Tomahawks hit the target, but four of them overshot, three landing in an upscale
Baghdad neighborhood and killing eight civilians. It was a stark reminder that no matter how careful the planning and how accurate the weapons, when that kind of firepower is unleashed, there are usually unintended consequences.
Source: My Life, by Bill Clinton, p.525-526
Jun 21, 2004
Page last updated: Feb 19, 2019