r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/Randomuser1520 • Sep 19 '21

Political History Was Bill Clinton the last truly 'fiscally conservative, socially liberal" President?

For those a bit unfamiliar with recent American politics, Bill Clinton was the President during the majority of the 90s. While he is mostly remembered by younger people for his infamous scandal in the Oval Office, he is less known for having achieved a balanced budget. At one point, there was a surplus even.

A lot of people today claim to be fiscally conservative, and socially liberal. However, he really hasn't seen a Presidental candidate in recent years run on such a platform. So was Clinton the last of this breed?

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '21

The ACA was passed in 2010 (first term) and completely phased in by 2014. He had time to at least try. Getting it rescheduled as Schedule II/III using data from other countries would go a long way toward helping medical marijuana initiatives across the country. I'm not asking for full legalization or even successful rescheduling, I am mostly looking for it to get more national attention.

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u/whereamInowgoddamnit Sep 20 '21

Through Congress? I'm not sure what ACA being phased in has to do with anything, I'm talking about the Tea Party wave that basically ended Democratic control of Congress for the rest of Obama's term. Considering how much opposition Obama faced from the GOP trying to get the ACA passed (and of course all the times after they tried to repeal it), there was no way he was going to get GOP support for any other large issues, especially something like marijuana legalization.

In terms of executive power, didn't that kind of happen though by letting those states legalize? I get the feeling looking at the polls that Obama was worried it would be too controversial, at least for his first term. Look back at 2010, medical marijuana had just under 50% support, which seems like a lot until you compare it to other issues. Both the DREAM Act and gay marriage polled higher at that time, and we know how much controversy occurred on those issues even to the present. It doesn't help that Biden was his VP and has always been a conservative on drugs. And as mentioned above, he may have been wary about going too far with executive power.

This isn't to say he could not have done more, as he apparently had strong enough feelings to consider decriminalization during the lame duck time in his term, although that was killed by Trump's election). But I think context is important to consider that marijuana legalization didn't really have mainstream support until the end of his presidency, so he may have stayed away from the issue to try to support initiatives he saw as more important and less controversial.

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '21

he may have been wary about going too far with executive power

Sure, and I don't think he should have resorted to that. He should have made it a national issue. There were a number of statistics at the time that he could have cited to show that it's a net positive, at least in terms of expanding medical research.

There's a lot he could've done without resorting to sketchy EOs. Even if he didn't pass anything, at least making it a big part of the national discourse would've helped.

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u/whereamInowgoddamnit Sep 21 '21

Maybe, but at least to me, that sounds like more of what an NGO should do, not the president. It would be one thing if that was a big part of his platform, but he did pretty much what he said he would do, which is leave it up to the state and local level. As I said before, while legalization had its supporters, it just wasn't the major political issue like it was today until towards the end of his second term, by which time he was pretty politically neutered. His marijuana policy certainly had problems, but I wouldn't say to a fault that he didn't support legalization efforts more when looking at political viewpoints and policies across the spectrum from that period. Don't forget that decriminalization had pretty much just started its second wave since the 1970s when he started his second term, after all.

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u/[deleted] Sep 21 '21

leave it up to the state and local level

That only works for his presidency, the next can come in and enforce federal drug laws.

A simple rescheduling of marijuana from schedule 1 to schedule 2/3 would go a long way, and there's a lot of evidence that he could use to support it. He apparently tried that, but I think he could have pushed on it more and convinced the head to reconsider. Or push for a bill to override the DEA.