Political scientist and author Dr. Jack Godwin tells Newsmax that Bill Clinton was a fiscal conservative rather than a liberal and shared many more of Ronald Reagan's views on economics than is generally believed.
Godwin, author of the new book “Clintonomics: How Bill Clinton Reengineered the Reagan Revolution,” also said that Clinton's influence can be widely felt at the Barack Obama White House.
Obama's CIA Director Leon Panetta has said Godwin's book "is a must read for those struggling to figure out the present economic crisis.”
Godwin’s basic point is that Clinton did not seek to turn back the economic policies of Ronald Reagan, dubbed “Reaganomics.” Instead, he embraced them and perfected them.
See Video: “Clintonomics” author Jack Godwin discusses Obama’s economic agenda - Click Here Now
Newsmax.TV's Kathleen Walter asked Godwin how he came to write the book.
"When I first started doing the research, I was writing only about Bill Clinton," the author responded. "My idea was to write a political biography.
"About a year and a half into the process, I started thinking that there needed to be more drama, and I thought a natural counterpoint would be Ronald Reagan's philosophy. But the more research I did, the more I found in common.
"Clintonomics is a comprehensive governing philosophy. He was a fiscal conservative, definitely, and had some other views that were moderate and some liberal. I don't think it's fair to put him on the liberal end of the spectrum."
How much are we seeing of Clinton's influence in the Obama administration? Walter asked.
"We are seeing a lot of former Clinton appointees in the administration," Godwin said.
"His wife is secretary of State. Rahm Emanuel, chief of staff, Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, and of course Leon Panetta over at CIA. So we're seeing a lot of his influence in the form of people he supervised."
Walter noted that Clinton supported a capital gains tax cut in 1997 that helped fuel the bull market in the late 1990s, while Obama proposes to raise the tax rate on dividends and capital gains, and asked what this will mean for Americans.
"The tax issue is interesting because whether you are for it or against it, raising taxes that is, depends on what you think is our most important problem.
"If you are against tax increases at any time, definitely you should be out there protesting.
"But if you think unemployment is a bigger problem, if you think slow growth is our biggest problem, then I think you can explore a variety of remedies. Raising taxes on one income level, cutting them on another income level, is a fair policy to be thinking about and possibly implementing."
The fiscal crisis and the election of a Democrat as president has brought Clinton's economic policies to the forefront of the political debate, observed Walter, who asked Godwin how this changes Clinton and Reagan's legacies.
"That's an interesting question because I struggled with that basically for the whole time I was writing the book," he said.
"I started the book in August 2005, and really no one was interested in economic policy anymore. Foreign policy was fascinating to everybody and it seemed that that was going to go on indefinitely.
"I handed in the manuscript to AMACOM [Books] in August 2008, almost exactly three years later, and that was still a month before the financial crisis. So I think the legacy is this: It's very important for the president to be a practicing economist, whether it's a Republican or a Democrat.
"I think that was something Reagan and Clinton definitely shared, and I think it's important that all future presidents have a good understanding of economics so they don't have to rely entirely on the expertise of their advisers."
Godwin added: "One of the things that really struck me about the commonality is when Reagan was talking about welfare reform, which he did not accomplish during his presidency. But he did say welfare reform is the greatest test of federalism that we could possibly have. Reagan really believed strongly in federalism. It was very important to him.
"In this sense, when Clinton signed the welfare reform act he passed the greatest test of federalism that Ronald Reagan himself described."
See Video: “Clintonomics” author Jack Godwin discusses Obama’s economic agenda - Click Here Now
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