A.J. Kenville recently wrote (letter, March 2) and corrected my depiction of President Clinton's record. He missed the point. I did not list everything that happened during Clinton's presidency, just some of what I consider to be negative issues.
I wrote in "knee-jerk" response to the seemingly never-ending letters stating that if only Clinton was president again, everything would be OK; similar to those who wish we could go back to the '50s and have "Cleaver marriages." I simply stated some facts. Kenville did agree however that President Clinton was not perfect.
I am not a Republican. I am not a Democrat. I have never belonged to any political party. I don't have a GOP playbook. I am interested in a more reasoned approach to the debate.
Kenville went on to describe how well the economy was doing, the budget surplus, the jobs created, etc., during the Clinton administration. I agree, the economy for about six years of the Clinton presidency demonstrated tremendous growth, resulting in revenues which produced surpluses, thousands of jobs and a balanced budget. I certainly benefited during those times as did many Americans. However, even then, people much smarter than I, such as Alan Greenspan, warned of "irrational exuberance." People warned that the market was over-valued and would correct itself.
In the summer of 1999, while Clinton was still president, the market began to slide. The terrorist attack on Sept. 11 dumped the market into a tremendous hole. The revelations about corporate greed and financial shenanigans continued to brutalize the market. When the dust settled, I suspect that many of those jobs created during the Clinton administration and market exuberance no longer existed in October 2001. Certainly the excess revenues and budget surpluses were gone.
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I suppose one could place all the blame on President Bush. The market now sits at about where it was when President Bush took office in 2000. I know it is pretty difficult -- even painful -- to give the current Bush administration any credit for the apparent market recovery.
Also during this time, corporate CEOs and accountants were "making hay while the sun shined." Does the Clinton administration bear any responsibility for the corporate greed of the '90s? Is our government responsible for insuring that corporate America is responsible? Did the policy of "It's the economy, stupid" have any attendant requirement for oversight?
Anecdote: My oldest brother was advised by one of his accountant sons to check out investing in Enron. He checked it out and found that Enron was selling more energy than the country was using. He smelled something fishy. He didn't invest. Lucky him! He is a nuclear engineer, has worked for years in the energy field and knows a lot about energy. If he could find out that kind of information, what about the government, the market watchdogs and analysts? Was anybody watching?
I believe reasonable Americans can get this right. We need to avoid the traps set by the extreme right and extreme left. Reasonable people will even agree to disagree.
Brunsvold is a Fargo physician. E-mail RBrunsvold@meritcare.com
