Random Walk

THIS month is the official one-year anniversary of the enactment of Clintonomics. My friends in the Treasury Department and the White House are all smiles and have cracked the champagne. Unemployment is still low; growth is steady. And best of all, Alice Rivlin says the deficit’s going to fall all the way down to $220 billion this year. Hey, that’s almost as low as it was in the debt-filled Reagan years.

I hate to be the skunk at the Rose Garden party, but Wall Street doesn’t seem to be sharing in the White House’s celebration. All last year Laura Tyson, head of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, said declining interest rates were the financial market’s signal of enthusiastic approval for the Clinton tax package. Okay, Laura, I believe you. But here is what happened to interest rates since the day the bill was passed:

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THIS month is the official one-year anniversary of the enactment of Clintonomics. My friends in the Treasury Department and the White House are all smiles and have cracked the champagne. Unemployment is still low; growth is steady. And best of all, Alice Rivlin says the deficit’s going to fall all the way down to $220 billion this year. Hey, that’s almost as low as it was in the debt-filled Reagan years.

I hate to be the skunk at the Rose Garden party, but Wall Street doesn’t seem to be sharing in the White House’s celebration. All last year Laura Tyson, head of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, said declining interest rates were the financial market’s signal of enthusiastic approval for the Clinton tax package. Okay, Laura, I believe you. But here is what happened to interest rates since the day the bill was passed: