Forgot the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/14/bu...rssnyt&emc=rss
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Though he publicly disagreed with Mr. Bush’s supply-side approach to tax cuts, urging Congress to offset the cost with savings elsewhere, he refrained from public criticism that could have shifted the debate. His willingness to criticize now, 18 months after leaving office, may open him to the accusation of failing to speak out when it could have affected policy.
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Essentially, if you can't cut spending to offset revenues lost in a tax cut, don't cut taxes. Doing one without the other is irresponsible. The reason Republican Greenspan praises Clinton is that he took a huge fiscal mess and helped create a budget surplus through sound fiscal policy, starting with the 1993 Deficit Reduction Act.
He also re-iterates Paul O'Neill's issues with the ideologues.
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“My friend,” he writes of Mr. O’Neill, “soon found himself to be the odd man out; much to my disappointment, economic policy making in the Bush administration remained firmly in the hands of the White House staff.”
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Former Treasury Secretary O'Neill criticized the Bush tax cuts on similar grounds:
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”It was not just about not wanting the tax cut. It was about how to use the nation's resources to improve the condition of our society,” says O’Neill. “And I thought the weight of working on Social Security and fundamental tax reform was a lot more important than a tax reduction.”
Did he think it was irresponsible? “Well, it's for sure not what I would have done,” says O’Neill.
The former treasury secretary accuses Vice President Dick Cheney of not being an honest broker, but, with a handful of others, part of "a praetorian guard that encircled the president" to block out contrary views. "This is the way Dick likes it," says O’Neill.
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http://www.informationclearinghouse....rticle5510.htm