fff
Rancher
Joined: 04 Feb 2008
Posts: 1721
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 Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 4:13 pm Post subject: |
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| aplusmnt wrote: |
| fff wrote: |
No, no, no, no. The last Democratic president left a projected Federal surplus. "politicians" didn't create the deficit. Republican politicans created the deficit in the years they had control of the government. So let's tax those guys' political dontations.  Of course, they're raising so little money, it's almost not worth the effort.
But it does do my heart good to see a "conservative" call for an increase in taxes.  |
You live in a fantasy world, go look at the deficit before Clinton took office and what the deficit was when he left office. The real world is out there for you to find if you really care to know the truth. Clinton left the country owing more money than when he took office. Them are facts! |
I didn't claim Clinton paid off the US debt. But during his term we took in more money than we paid out and paid down the debt to the lowest it's been in years. What has Bush done? But don't let the facts get in your way, keep on scooping Bush's poop.
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Q:
During the Clinton administration was the federal budget balanced? Was the federal deficit erased?
A:
Yes to both questions, whether you count Social Security or not.
This chart, based on historical figures from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, shows the total deficit or surplus for each fiscal year from 1990 through 2006. Keep in mind that fiscal years begin Oct. 1, so the first year that can be counted as a Clinton year is fiscal 1994. The appropriations bills for fiscal years 1990 through 1993 were signed by Bill Clinton's predecessor, George H.W. Bush. Fiscal 2002 is the first for which President George W. Bush signed the appropriations bills, and the first to show the effect of his tax cuts.
--Chart here---
The Clinton years showed the effects of a large tax increase that Clinton pushed through in his first year, and that Republicans incorrectly claim is the "largest tax increase in history." It fell almost exclusively on upper-income taxpayers. Clinton's fiscal 1994 budget also contained some spending restraints. An equally if not more powerful influence was the booming economy and huge gains in the stock markets, the so-called dot-com bubble, which brought in hundreds of millions in unanticipated tax revenue from taxes on capital gains and rising salaries.
Clinton's large budget surpluses also owe much to the Social Security tax on payrolls. Social Security taxes now bring in more than the cost of current benefits, and the "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. So any way you count it, the federal budget was balanced and the deficit was erased, if only for a while.
Update, Feb. 11: Some readers wrote to us saying we should have made clear the difference between the federal deficit and the federal debt. A deficit occurs when the government takes in less money than it spends in a given year. The debt is the total amount the government owes at any given time. So the debt goes up in any given year by the amount of the deficit, or it decreases by the amount of any surplus. The debt the government owes to the public decreased for a while under Clinton, but the debt was by no means erased.
Other readers have noted a USA Today story stating that, under an alternative type of accounting, the final four years of the Clinton administration taken together would have shown a deficit. This is based on an annual document called the "Financial Report of the U.S. Government," which reports what the governments books would look like if kept on an accrual basis like those of most corporations, rather than the cash basis that the government has always used. The principal difference is that under accrual accounting the government would book immediately the costs of promises made to pay future benefits to government workers and Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries. But even under accrual accounting, the annual reports showed surpluses of $69.2 billion in fiscal 1998, $76.9 billion in fiscal 1999, and $46 billion for fiscal year 2000. So even if the government had been using that form of accounting the deficit would have been erased for those three years.
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/during_the_clinton_administration_was_the_federal.html
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Clinton announced Wednesday that the federal budget surplus for fiscal year 2000 amounted to at least $230 billion, making it the largest in U.S. history and topping last year's record surplus of $122.7 billion.
"Eight years ago, our future was at risk," Clinton said Wednesday morning. "Economic growth was low, unemployment was high, interest rates were high, the federal debt had quadrupled in the previous 12 years. When Vice President Gore and I took office, the budget deficit was $290 billion, and it was projected this year the budget deficit would be $455 billion."
Instead, the president explained, the $5.7 trillion national debt has been reduced by $360 billion in the last three years -- $223 billion this year alone.
This represents, Clinton said, "the largest one-year debt reduction in the history of the United States."
"Like our Olympic athletes in Sydney, the American people are breaking all kinds of records these days. This is the first year we've balanced the budget without using the Medicare trust fund since Medicare was created in 1965. I think we should follow Al Gore's advice and lock those trust funds away for the future," he said.
In June, the administration predicted the surplus would be $211 billion, and would increase by as much as $1 trillion over the next 10 years.
"The key to fiscal discipline is maintaining these results year after year. We need to put our priorities in order," Clinton said.
The president's news comes as lawmakers on Capitol Hill continue to wrestle with the fiscal year 2001 budget numbers. The new budget year begins October 1, and work has been completed on only two of the 13 annual spending bills, as the Republican-led Congress and the White House remain at odds over spending allocations.
"I am concerned, frankly, about the size and last-minute nature of this year's congressional spending spree, where they seem to be loading up the spending bills with special projects for special interests, but can't seem to find the time to raise the minimum wage, or pass a patients' bill of rights, or drug benefits for our seniors through Medicare, or tax cuts for long-term care, child care, or college education," Clinton said.
"These are the things that need to be done and I certainly hope they will be and still make the right investments and the right amount of tax cuts," Clinton said.
Rep. J.C. Watts, R-Oklahoma, chairman of the House Republican Conference, said the GOP wants 90 percent of the surplus used for the debt. In a CNN interview, he said the other 10 percent should be used to "take care of a lot of priorities we have, like prescription drugs, making sure that our education needs are met, making sure some of our national security needs are met, and doing that while at the same time protecting the Social Security surplus and the Medicare surplus."
That approach would be in lieu of tax cuts, which "we can't do this year because the president vetoed it," Watts said.
Clinton unveiled the new numbers in a statement at the White House before departing for fund-raising events in Dallas and Houston.
"This is part of our fiscal discipline to reduce the debt with the federal surplus," said one White House official who asked not to be identified. Reducing the debt, the official said, has "real effects for real Americans." It means lower interest rates for mortgages, car loans and college loans, and leads to an increase in investment and more jobs."
It is the third year in a row the federal government has taken in more than it spent, and has paid down the debt. The last time the U.S. government had a third consecutive year of national debt reduction was 1949, said the official.
The federal budget surplus for fiscal year 1999 was $122.7 billion, and $69.2 billion for fiscal year 1998. Those back-to-back surpluses, the first since 1957, allowed the Treasury to pay down $138 billion in national debt.
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/09/27/clinton.surplus/
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aplusmnt
Rancher
Joined: 25 Aug 2006
Posts: 5931
Location: Southeast Kansas
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| Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 8:22 pm Post subject: |
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| fff wrote: |
I didn't claim Clinton paid off the US debt. But during his term we took in more money than we paid out and paid down the debt to the lowest it's been in years. What has Bush done? But don't let the facts get in your way, keep on scooping Bush's poop.
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You are the one that has problem looking at facts, and trying to oversimplify things. There is so many complex issues involved in economics and especially ones as mass as the whole countries.
Clinton never paid down the debt, he had a couple years of tweaking figures and cutting vital programs such as the military and the building of roads and bridges. He changed the figures around on the way Social Security was counted towards to fit his needs.
He also benefited those couple years from things like Regan ending the cold war and the increasing military budget to keep up with the Russians. He had an increase of revenue due to the dot com bubble that later burst. He benefited from a thrifty congress that worked with him to cut spending. He saved money by not fighting the terrorist that attacked on American land and interest more under him than any other president.
The fact is the National Debt was higher when he left office than when he took office, and he left Bush a recession, deteriorating roads and bridges, and terrorist to deal with.
And sure spending will be higher under Bush, you are not comparing apples to oranges. Bush has two wars, and Katrina to fund. Every time in history that there is a war, the deficit increases. Just basic economics. Just a shame Clinton did not do something to stop Bin Laden before the need for two wars came to be.
Clinton did not use smart economics to help America he buried stuff and cut stuff to leave it for a future president to deal with. People say Bush is leaving a debt for our grandchildren to pay, Clinton left a pile of things needing to be taken care of for future presidents to handle.
Basically Clinton pushed America's problems in the oval office desk drawer for the next guy to discover and solve.
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