Cass Ballenger: “President Clinton is just pretending to be President, He is just pretending to propose solutions to our Nation's…”

“President Clinton is just pretending to be President, He is just pretending to propose solutions to our Nation's problems. Let me illustrate what I mean. Take the issue of helping the working poor. The President, by proposing an increase in the minimum wage, has a pretend solution to a real problem. Raising minimum wage will cause job loss and won't help the working poor. Even President Clinton agrees. He said so in Time magazine in 1995. If President Clinton thought raising the minimum wage was a good idea, he should have raised it when the Democrats had control of the Congress during the first 2 years of his term. He didn't I can only conclude that the President doesn't want to help the working poor, only wants to pretend to help. Another recent example of pretending is the announcement that he will sell 12 million barrels of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve in an effort to reduce rising gasoline prices. Twelve million barrels sounds like a lot of oil, but it is less than a day's supply for the Nation. The sale of oil will have a negligible effect on prices. If he wanted a real solution to a real problem, he would support repeal of his 4.3 cents a gallon gasoline tax of 1993. However, President Clinton would rather make a bold announcement and pretend to do something about rising gas prices. We need a President that has real solutions for real problems. Not a President who is playing 'let's pretend.'”