(no subject)

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

Comments

[thedabara-cds.livejournal.com]

So true.

[404.livejournal.com]

The surplus was only a small fraction of the debt that was still on the books in the 90's. It's not like the government had paid it off and was running real surpluses. Just propagating a myth. Clinton entered office with a deficit of ~4.4 trillion and left with a deficit of ~5.7 trillion.
Try it yourself: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np Type in the day he took office and the day he left. And yes, that is a government website.

[bord-du-rasoir.livejournal.com]

There is a difference between the term, debt, and the term, deficit. You've used them interchangeably. That's incorrect.

[404.livejournal.com]

It's still a semantic game to obscure the reality that even when the budget was "balanced" and it really wasn't, just shuffling money around from the Social Security fund to the general fund, the overall deficit did not go down appreciably, and even went up. You can't say that there was a surplus when the actual national debt went up.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

...the overall deficit did not go down appreciably...

The point of the minor surplus was that, if nobody fucked with it, the national debt would have been neutralized in 10-15 years.

[404.livejournal.com]

The point of the minor surplus was that, if nobody fucked with it, the national debt would have been neutralized in 10-15 years.

I'll play along: all that was with the expectations of the dot com boom to last forever, 9/11 to not have happened, the housing bubble to not have happened, no recession happening, etc. All with the hope that politicians to keep their hands out of the pork.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

...expectations of the dot com boom to last forever...

Granted, along with the others. It was still there, and the responsibility was on those at the wheel to adjust to conditions on the ground.


...9/11 to not have happened...

The spending response it got wasn't warranted at all, though that also knocked the economy on its ass.


All with the hope that politicians to keep their hands out of the pork.

Oh, if only.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

And there were two very large payments on the national debt made by Clinton as well. I recall reading economists worried at them about the country having NO debt by 2012, because the system was sort of predicated on some debt. It seems crazy now in hindsight.

[bord-du-rasoir.livejournal.com]

"[T]he "Social Security surplus" makes the total deficit or surplus figures look better than they would if Social Security wasn’t counted. But even if we remove Social Security from the equation, there was a surplus of $1.9 billion in fiscal 1999 and $86.4 billion in fiscal 2000."

http://factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/