Other than the fact that the Obama administration is full of former Clinton appointees, should we still care what former President Bill Clinton has to say? Although the world has changed significantly since Clinton left office, he remains a leading authority on the global economy, and the issues he cares about, particularly health care, welfare, education and globalization, all have far-reaching economic consequences.

Besides, long before "post-partisanship" became fashionable in Washington, Clinton transcended the simplistic debate between liberals and conservatives. On one side of the debate, there was the old, discredited Washington, D.C., view that government is the solution to all our problems. On the other side, there was the Contract with America, a patchwork of proposals mostly drawn from Ronald Reagan's old state of the union messages, which claimed government was the cause of all our problems. Clinton placed himself right in the middle of the debate.

Clinton had some ideas that were not politically pure: not perfectly liberal, not perfectly conservative. For example, he had the idea that you could cut the deficit, reform the way the government delivers services and still have money to invest in things like research, education and infrastructure. When Clinton took office, he did not advocate change for its own sake but recognized the need to reinvent government and reposition the American economy in the post-Cold War era.

People made fun of Clinton for being a "policy wonk," someone a little too knowledgeable and a little too fascinated by the details of government policy. It is a gently pejorative term, but to this day Clinton wears it as a badge of honor. Clinton's argument, which his immediate successor proved beyond dispute, is that details matter. You can argue all you want about liberal vs. conservative, but good government requires more than rhetoric. Eventually, reality makes a difference.

Tax cuts are a perfect example. Everybody wants a tax cut, don't they? There is no political down side. But is it good policy? The answer depends on what you think is our worst economic problem. If you are a budget hawk and think we should always try to balance the budget, then tax cuts will probably make the deficit worse. If you think government waste is our biggest problem, then you should support not just tax cuts, but also spending cuts. However, if you recognize there is a difference between investment and consumption, you should support some intervention in the economy by the government – such as the stimulus package President Barack Obama just signed – because it will relieve unemployment and provide much-needed investment in public infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges, railways, transit systems and information systems.

In 1981, Reagan said government was not the solution; government was the problem. In 1996, Clinton said the era of big government was over. What's the difference? The calendar is the difference. When the Cold War ended, the world exited one era and entered another. To suggest the global era somehow ended in September 2001 indicates a severe case of tunnel vision – not merely the lack of peripheral vision but a failure to recognize that globalization, not terrorism or any specific act of terrorism, is the central reality of our time.

One could argue, as conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer has argued, that Clinton's presidency was not historically consequential because he never faced a great crisis.

"What is the legacy of the Clinton presidency?" Krauthammer asked, "Consolidator of the Reagan Revolution."

However, if you reject the false premise that the years following the Cold War but before 9/11 were some kind of holiday from history, there is a more plausible conclusion: Clinton succeeded where Reagan failed by transcending the simplistic debate between liberals who want to expand government and conservatives who want to starve it to death.

No doubt, some of Reagan's admirers will disagree. No disrespect intended.