Equal Time: Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal just before Super Tuesday. The core of her article was, in my opinion, these passages in italics. Let's consider her contentions, one at a time.

"My measure of economic success will never be a single, dry statistic. Rather, success means an economy that allows those at the bottom to work their way into the middle class, without pushing anyone out. It means leaving people better off when I finish than when I start. In short, success means an economy that shares its prosperity with all.

Yes, a laudable goal. And one already attained, per this recent post . If the American economy wasn't offering great income mobility, both up and down, in response to effort and education, then we wouldn't have an immigration problem. We'd have an emigration problem.

In the 1990s we saw how smart economic plans could help spur the economy to create 22 million new jobs and income growth across the board. For the past seven years we've seen the opposite. Corporate earnings have been impressive, but the average income of workers has declined. The typical household is paying $2,000 more in energy costs. Health care is nearly twice as expensive, with the number of uninsured rising to 47 million. Five million Americans have fallen into poverty.

Is Hillary's contention that, somehow, health care and energy costs are the responsibility of government, and they magically would have been lower under her husband's regime, had it continued for eight more years?

Here, Romney's criticism of Hillary's lack of value-creating, private sector employment is on target. She clearly misunderstands the nature of our economy. Energy prices rose because of market forces. Our government really doesn't control or, for the most part, affect these forces. When it has tried, it has usually failed to have its intended effect, e.g., gasoline rationing.

It's the same with health care. If anything, health care costs, particularly insurance, have risen because of government regulations and failure to control lawsuit costs. If insurance were not mandated to be available to all at the same price, and were, instead, risk-priced, many of us would see our health care costs fall.

Lastly, an average wage number, if it were correct, which I doubt, would still not capture the mobility factor. How many lower-paid citizens were better off eight years later? Hillary doesn't go there.

Because of the Bush administration's neglect, the forces of globalization and technological change -- which should represent opportunities for economic growth -- have weakened America's great middle class.

This is simply incomprehensible? Exactly which 'forces of globalization and technological change...have weakened America's great middle class?' Aren't responses to these forces, in our economy, the province of private sector companies, not the federal government?

This post discusses a specific rebuttal to Hillary's allegation that our middle class has been weakened.

Once more, Hillary the facsist comes to the fore as social planner extraordinaire.

Simply put, since 2001, our economy has failed the shared prosperity test, and we need decisive, experienced leadership to get us back on the right track."

No, it hasn't. Economic mobility is alive and well. And if anyone is not experienced in leading anything, Hillary is one of them.

By the way, in her Super Tuesday speech last night, midway through the election returns, Hillary again stumped for adding 'green collar' jobs to America, as well as well-paying auto making jobs.

Where'd this come from? Is Hillary now VP of Human Resources for America? How does Hillary know which jobs we need? What is a 'green collar' job? How would Hillary know that employers want to hire people for these jobs?

Or is she just going to tax you and me, in order to offer generous subsidies for modern-day equivalents of FDR's make-work programs?

If this is leadership and progress, Hillary, you have miles to go before you're ready to run anything.