Job One Is the Economy, Right? : But fixing it is easier said than done
“It’s the economy, stupid.” That sign in the Little Rock campaign headquarters was designed to keep Bill Clinton’s campaign focused on the pivotal issue of the 1992 presidential race. The message was simple, a nice sound bite. But the solutions are not as easy as a sound bite.
Transforming the President-elect’s detailed plan, “Putting People First,” into doable programs for rebuilding America has begun in earnest. Harvard lecturer Robert Reich is overseeing economic policy matters for the Clinton transition team, whose top priority right now is Cabinet appointments for economic posts.
Clinton, meanwhile, will hold an economic summit in Little Rock Dec. 14 and 15 to gather feedback on his proposals, which range from tax hikes for the wealthy to a federal $20-billion infrastructure program.
Until then--to parody the Clinton slogan--it’s wait and see, stupid.
Reading the economic tea leaves is more complex than ever. The economic news is encouraging yet mixed. Orders for durable goods in October registered the biggest gain in 15 months, and sales of existing homes in California rose 10.9% last month. Consumer confidence reversed a five-month dive, rising in November--after the election--for the first time since June. But December retail sales will better indicate whether consumers are confident enough to loosen their purse strings for the holidays.
Uncertainty looms over jobs amid more corporate restructurings and layoffs. BankAmerica Corp., which recently merged with Security Pacific, will close 450 branches, with the heaviest hit coming in Southern California.
A wave of consolidations in the aerospace industry, the latest being Martin Marietta’s deal to buy General Electric’s aerospace business, poses new challenges. Other defense companies--many are in Southern California--are likely to be under pressure to consider mergers to better compete.
And the deficit continues to hang over everything. The Treasury Department reported the federal government opened the 1993 fiscal year with a $48.87-billion deficit in October. Forecasts for the fiscal 1993 deficit range from the Bush Administration’s $341 billion to the Congressional Budget Office’s $331 billion. The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, frustrated with the continuing U.S. deficit, bluntly has called for higher U.S. taxes to reduce the deficit. Meanwhile, European governments are fending off another currency crisis in the European Monetary System.
These developments enormously complicate the task of formulating an economic plan that creates jobs in the short term while taming the deficit over the longer term. Yet that’s what Bill Clinton was elected to do.
