ABSTRACT
President Clinton's State of the Union message to the Congress on February 17, 1993 defined a broad economic agenda for the nation, as President Reagan had done twelve years earlier. Like the debate that ensued over Reaganomics, the impending debate over Clintonomics will deal as much with politics as with economics. The new debate over Clintonomics focuses on fiscal policy, rather than monetary policy, pitting fiscal "activists" against fiscal "conservatives" within the Clinton entourage. When Clinton's fiscal conservatives address tax issues their inclination is to move toward one or another form of consumption tax—such as some type of energy tax—to encourage saving. Clintonomics will be an eclectic mixture of activist and conservative ingredients. It will be less coherent than the supply-side emphasis of Reaganomics, and perhaps also less vulnerable to criticism because most potential critics will find something in the mixture that they like to offset what they don't like.
