Maybe Bill SHOULD Have a Job

Maybe a year ago, after Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy for the presidency (but before we all discovered that she was possibly going to be running from a Federal prison), I did a piece contemplating what it meant for Bill.  He was not a fan of her running for president, I speculated, given the disaster it would make of his life.

It would put a serious damper on his social life, limit the jetting around giving paid speeches and using the Clinton Foundation as a front for raising oodles of cash.  He could still play golf, but more at Joint Base Andrews than at TPC courses.  A few months back, I also noted that Hillary could do some serious damage to his legacy as president and to how he would be remembered, years after he had managed to rehabilitate that legacy ... somewhat.

Now, however, he has a chance to screw up his legacy all by himself.  Yep, in an effort to resuscitate her dolorous candidacy with the fact that her husband is more popular than she is, Hillary has pronounced that Bill will be put in charge of "revitalizing the economy."  Oh, yes, I'm serious, except you probably already had heard the story.

Oh, dear.  Let's think about why that is a hugely terrible idea.

First, it is a terrible idea because it is a terrible idea, and Hillary does not need to float things out there that even the leftist Time magazine thinks are stupid.  She has a reputation as a bit of a policy wonk (and a few other things) and someone who "gets things done."  There isn't anything actually to point to as examples, but at least she repeats it a lot.

So what does it say when she says that she is going to put her husband in charge of fixing the economy?  Well, a lot of things, and none of them is good.  First and foremost, it's the economy, stupid!  Remember that?  It was a message Bill left for himself to remind himself constantly that the economy is the most important thing to the people who go to the polls, not to mention those who don't.

But evidently the economy is not important enough for Hillary Clinton to think she should be the one to worry about it.  No, it gets pushed across the table to her husband.  I don't care who her husband is, including that he used to be president himself.  If she is going to do something like that, then it means we are voting for a couple to share the presidency -- and that's a couple with a, let's say, "spotty" relationship involving the throwing of ash trays and kitchen utensils.

Bill: "Well, sweetie, we need to adjust these tax rates here to stimulate the energy sector to hire ..."
Hillary: "$%^%^&# you, you filthy philandering #$%^&$%!!!"


Get the idea?  I thought you might.  Now, I have worked with my wife at six different places, including twice operating our own business, once primarily hers and once primarily mine.  There are times -- rare in our case -- when we might be disagreeing about something and you could see where it might affect our judgment on the other's opinion.  We managed -- but we don't have a throwing-utensils type of relationship.

This is the economy we're talking about.  Bill Clinton used to be president of the United States.  He is surely going to think his recommendations are really good, and will not take kindly to wifely criticism.

More than that, though, there is a huge potential for differing opinions on what would work.  Suppose that Bill recommends a tax cut as a stimulus?  Suppose that he thinks another trade deal like NAFTA would stimulate jobs?  Bill was a big proponent of NAFTA, while Hillary has gone from supporting it one upon a time to opposing it now.  Bill Clinton is not going to be just another senior staff member, whose research and recommendations can be simply ignored if the president doesn't agree.

So whose opinion rules when Bill wants to balance the budget, as he was forced to do by the 1994 Republican takeover of the House, but Hillary insists on a big-government tax, borrow and spend approach?  Hint -- only one of the two can say that they have their current job because the voters put them there.

I mean, I can't even get past the part that says something else is more important than the economy.  We are $20 trillion in debt and rising; fewer people work now than were employed when Barack Obama became president.  There are no jobs, and the poor trying to get the few that are there have to compete with illegal aliens flooding over a nonexistent, unenforced border.

The economy should be the direct concern of the president.  Not a past president, not a husband.  The president of the United States.  And that is assuming that Hillary Clinton has even a clue about how to create jobs (assuming that she even sees "jobs" as what the problem with the economy actually is).

It's a terrible idea.  There is no accounting for what goes on in Hillary Clinton's mind, except that she is finally being convinced that the presidency, that she thinks herself entitled to, is slipping through her fingers (the polls are not being kind to her).  She has forgotten that it was an extremely unpopular move when Bill had her put together a health-care proposal in his first term -- she wasn't elected, she wasn't popular, she had no experience in the area, and her proposal was socialism.

Hillary Clinton needs fewer terrible ideas, not more.  This one is a real stinker.  But I suppose that if Bill has a job, it will at least keep him at arms length for her.  If the country is silly enough to give her enough votes.

Oh, yeah, and if she is not already in prison by then.

Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
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