Politics & Governance / Public Policy / Social Welfare & Safety Nets

The Great Betrayal: How Bill Clinton Surrendered to Reaganomics

Think Ronald Reagan destroyed the American welfare state? Think again. The man who actually pulled the trigger was a Democrat: Bill Clinton. About the Book & Author: Surrender: How the Clinton Administration Completed the Reagan Revolution is written by Michael Meeropol, an esteemed economist, professor emeritus at Western New England University, and the elder son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. In this groundbreaking work, Meeropol exposes the shocking political truth: the 1990s economic boom was not a liberal triumph, but the total surrender of progressive economics to supply-side conservatism. Slide-by-Slide Breakdown: Slide 1: The Ultimate Lie of 90s Politics You were told Clinton rescued working families. Reality check: he handed Reagan his greatest victory. No Republican could destroy welfare. A Democrat did it with a smile. Slide 2: The Stagflation Setup The 1970s broke Keynesian economics. Double-digit inflation plus soaring unemployment. Conservatives found their scapegoat: big government. Reagan promised tax cuts and small state power. Yet Reagan never managed to balance the budget. Slide 3: The 1996 White Flag Election year arrived, and Clinton panicked. He signed the 1996 Welfare Reform bill. Sixty years of safety nets for poor children vanished. He traded core progressive values for re-election poll numbers. Slide 4: Giving Away the Keys In 1997, Clinton locked in the zero-deficit pledge. Fiscal policy for full employment was officially abandoned. Government gave up trying to fix inequality. All power shifted to one unelected entity: the Federal Reserve. Slide 5: The Cost of Surrender The late-nineties boom felt great while it lasted. Beneath the surface: gutted safety nets and exploding wealth inequality. When the next crash came, families were left defenseless. Uncover how modern American politics actually works and why today's economic struggles started with a bipartisan handshake.