Clintonomics: Introductory Comments

WILLIAM A. NISKANEN*

We are privileged this afternoon to have three distinguished economists to talk about the first year of the Clinton economic program. The Clinton program is the most ambitious, expansive economic program in the last 12 years. At least according to the rhetoric of the administration, it is designed to reverse what they regard as the policies of the last 12 years. As an advisor to President Reagan, I want to register one disclaimer up front. I think it is inappropriate to group the eight years of the Reagan administration with the four years of the Bush administration. The objective of Reagan was to reduce the growth of spending, taxes, regulation, and the price level, and he made substantial progress on each of those dimensions. It is always very difficult to figure out what Mr. Bush's objectives were but, in fact, the rate of growth of domestic spending and of regulation went up very rapidly. So whatever the interpretation of history, we now have a new administration with a substantially different economic policy, which will be revealed progressively. We have only recently seen, for example, the first signals of how they are to treat regulatory issues, trade issues, and antitrust issues. But that will be the case and we expect to see more initiatives over a period of time. This is a very activist administra- tion with a quite extensive agenda and one that is quite different from the previous 12 years. We will be reflecting this afternoon on what we can say about the agenda and actions of the Clinton administration in the economic area during its first year. Our first speaker is Professor Lawrence Klein of the University of Pennsylvania, Nobel Laureate, former president of the Atlantic Economic Society, one of the founders of the leading forecasting organization, and one of the nation's leading macroeconomists.

*CATO Institute. Vice President of the Atlantic Economic Society 1992-93.

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