Senate Budget Committee chairman Patty Murray, D-Wash, said today the tax increase signed into law by President Clinton not cause economic growth “on its own” during the 1990s.
“This budget bill passed the Senate and the House without a single Republican vote,” Murray said of the Clinton budget. “One Senate Republican said, and I quote, ‘I believe this program is going to make the economy weak, I believe hundreds of thousands of people are going to lose their jobs, I believe Bill Clinton will be one of those people.’
“Well, of course not of those predictions came to pass,” she continued. “The economy grew by and average rate of four percent for the next eight years. Twenty-two million jobs were created while unemployment plummeted from 7.3 percent in 1993 to 3.9 percent in 2000. And President Clinton was easily reelected.”
“Now, I don’t think it was the tax increase on its own that caused the economy to grow,” she said. “But I do think that the responsible and balanced fiscal approach played a role.”
Senate Democrats today unveiled their first budget in four years. Their budget proposal includes almost $1 trillion in tax increases, targeted at the wealthy, as well as $100 billion in new stimulus spending, Fox News reports.
