It’s not exactly Cory Booker’s infamous hostage video, but former President Bill Clinton has given Wolf Blitzer a major walkback interview on his call to extend the Bush tax cuts. That call bucked President Obama’s call to end those tax cuts, which, if it happens, will unleash a wave of huge tax hikes across the land. At turns Urkel “Was that wrong?” and his old lip-biting self in the interview, the former president clarifies himself for the record. The full interview airs this evening but CNN aired a snippet this afternoon.
WOLF BLITZER: I just sat down with the former president here in Chicago at the Clinton Global Initiative, and I asked him about that.BILL CLINTON: What I was saying yesterday, which is apparently not accurate, is that if this fiscal cliff comes to the president and the congress and the country before the election, he can’t afford to give up his position and he shouldn’t. That we’ll have revenues to deal with this debt long term and asking those of us to pay taxes. I support that position. i always have, and — but the republicans feel they can indirectly ratify it, so I was talking whether they needed to put off after the election, but they still have until the first of the year. So if they have until the first of the year, in any case, to deal with this there’s no problem. they both have their positions, and to decide how to resolve it, but the election won’t intervene and therefore, I regret that all of this stirring up has happened because that’s what with I was thinking. I was under the impression that shooing might have to be done before the election.
BLITZER: The president has flatly said he will veto any extension of the bush tax cut for individuals making more than $200,000 a year and families making more than $250,000. He’s extended it a few times and he says he won’t do this again.
CLINTON: I support this issue, and I think on the merits, upper income people will have to contribute to the long-term debt reduction. you get debt now, there are three things, adequate revenue stream and what he’s trying to say is that we’ve got to have all three, and so I support his position, but we really — I’m very sorry about what happened yesterday. I thought something had to be done on the fiscal cliff before the election.
Bill Clinton is a man who organized his Oval Office trysts with Monica Lewinsky around the legal definition of sexual intercourse. He is a wonk’s wonk, so much better versed in policy than the current president that he once took over one of President Obama’s press conferences. He spent decades trying to de-McGovernize the Democratic Party, only to see Barack Obama undo all of that work in three years. Is anybody buying that Clinton’s Bush tax cuts thing was a mistake? Anybody?
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