Restoring Bill's extra 2% tax on high incomes. That was what triggered the biggest economic boom in modern history, finally sending the Dow back up over 4000 for the first time since the 1986 bust. That extra tax, a small portion of what was gutted by Reagan, worked in two ways. First, some downward wealth transfer, and doing that always stimulates the economy because money transferred downward recirculates the fastest. And then second, that extra 2% plus some small spending cuts showed the financial markets that Bill Clinton was not racing to drive the bus off the cliff. That helps lower interest rates and give these markets the promise of stability that they need to have price to earnings ratios rise. So I know that you, being an Authority on Average Americans, wanted that improvement in the employment market and in the prospects of the middle-class.
I know that in supporting the middle-class you want everyone to be able to send kids to college. Hillary's approach was "debt free college", meaning it would still be needs tested, so it was quite fiscally responsible. And then just like with her 1993 Health Care Plan, something which did a very good job of hiding the costs behind the costs that large employers were already paying, I am sure that her college plan would include cost controls. One of the reasons Medicare has been so difficult is that LBJ compromised to gain the support of the American Medical Association, and gutted the cost controls. We know based on her 1993 plan that Hillary Clinton would never do anything like that. College costs have been skyrocketing because of 1. widening wealth gap, 2. college loan system having no cost controls and people like Donald Trump profiting off of it, 3. States like California being squeezed by things like the 1978 Jarvis-Gann initiative, separating property values and property taxes and making the state's finances completely unworkable, and that coming back in extreme fees at UC and CSU.
And then of trade agreements like NAFTA, while there is some Republican opposition, it comes from those with rather extreme and marginalized views. The stronger opposition has always come from the Progressive Wing of the Democratic Party. Back during the 1992 Primary, Jerry Brown of California and Tom Harkin of Iowa stood together in their complete opposition to that kind of an agreement, and instead wanted US trade police to reflect American values in labor policies. Well, Bill Clinton, a far more conservative candidate, beat them.
