Rich Lowry's revisionist history

National Review editor Rich Lowry claims it was liberals who said President Clinton's first-term approach to economic and budgetary woes wouldn't work:

Obama is not the first president to take office amid a deteriorating budgetary picture. So did Bill Clinton in 1992. He responded by jettisoning the $200 billion "investment" program he promised in the campaign and adopting a deficit-reduction program in its stead. He caterwauled privately about losing his political soul, and his left-wing supporters predicted economic gloom. A decade of rollicking good times ensued.

I can understand why Lowry wants to hug Bill Clinton's economic policies -- they helped slash the deficit and create an economic boom, while conservative presidents have run up massive deficits.  But if Lowry wants us to believe that liberals were the ones who opposed Clinton's successful economic policies, maybe he can explain why Clinton's 1993 budget passed without a single Republican vote?

The reason, of course, is that conservatives (wrongly) predicted that Clinton's policies would result in "economic gloom."  

For example:

• Then-Congressman Chris Cox (R-CA) warned Clinton's proposals were "the Dr. Kevorkian plan for our economy. ... It will kill jobs, kill businesses and, yes, kill even the higher tax revenues that these suicidal tax increasers hope to gain."  
• Conservative deep thinker Newt Gingrich said "The tax increase will kill jobs and lead to a recession, and the recession will force people off of work and onto unemployment and will actually increase the deficit."  
• Pete Domenici: "This Clinton budget plan will not create jobs, will not grow the economy, and will not reduce the deficit."  
• John Kasich: "This plan will not work. If it was to work, then I'd have to become a Democrat and believe that more taxes and bigger government is the answer."

Kasich didn't keep his word; he is currently running for governor of Ohio as a Republican. 

Of course, Republican members of Congress weren't the only conservatives predicting "economic gloom" as a result of Clinton's stewardship of the economy. It was also conservative media like ... National Review.

On September 18, 1993, National Journal described two prominent conservative magazines' coverage of Clinton's economic policies:

The cover of a package of National Review articles sent free to new subscribers is headlined "Is America Heading for a Clinton Economic Apocalypse?" An illustration features a quartet of hooded horse riders: Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton in the middle, flanked by Vice President Albert Gore Jr. and budget director Leon E. Panetta. Both the Review and the Spectator preach a free-market gospel of the timeless virtues of low tax rates and minimal bureauracy. Contrary views aren't brooked; the Spectator's September issue set the tone with a "Dead Wrong" editorial by Tyrell that began and ended with the argument that "everything" Clinton believes about the economy "is wrong."

And in August of 1993, William F. Buckley wrote in a column in the Miami Herald:

Economist Stephen Moore brings a different perspective to the question. He writes (in National Review): "In voting on Bill Clinton's economic plan, Democrats must choose whether to torpedo the Clinton presidency or the U.S. economy. It is generally assumed that they will dutifully opt for the latter."

And now, National Review editor Rich Lowry writes -- under the headline "The Budget Poseur" -- that it was the liberals who predicted that Clinton's economic policies wouldn't work.