The Clinton Economic Boom

Bill Clinton often gets credit for being the architect of the longest economic expansion in U.S. history and for being the catalyst for 22+ million jobs that were created during his tenure. Based on this reputation, the conventional wisdom is that the U.S. can regain the prosperity of the Clinton era by electing a president with similar political values, who will advance similar policies. B. A. Marbue Brown challenges the conventional wisdom by presenting a factbased analysis, which shows that five factors combined to create an economic perfect storm during the Clinton years, and that the President had little if any influence over those factors. He also shows that several popular beliefs about the administration's economic record are founded on myths. Then leveraging lessons learned from his analysis, he adds prescriptions that policymakers can use to drive economic growth in more typical circumstances. Almost 300 citations back up his conclusions.