The Clinton Surplus Myth...

A good article explaining why there was never a surplus during the Clinton Administration...

The Clinton Surplus Myth:

Time and time again, anyone reading the mainstream news or reading articles on the Internet will read the claim that President Clinton not only balanced the budget, but had a surplus. This is then used as an argument to further highlight the fiscal irresponsibility of the federal government under the Bush administration.

The claim is generally made that Clinton had a surplus of $69 billion in FY1998, $123 billion in FY1999 and $230 billion in FY2000 . In that same link, Clinton claimed that the national debt had been reduced by $360 billion in the last three years, presumably FY1998, FY1999, and FY2000--though, interestingly, $360 billion is not the sum of the alleged surpluses of the three years in question ($69B + $123B + $230B = $422B, not $360B).

While not defending the increase of the federal debt under President Bush, it's curious to see Clinton's record promoted as having generated a surplus. It never happened. There was never a surplus and the facts support that position. In fact, far from a $360 billion reduction in the national debt in FY1998-FY2000, there was an increase of $281 billion.

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If there had been no surplus, why did Republican Bush make it an issue during his campaign and say it was proof people were getting overtaxed?

 

I don't know.

 

That there was a budget surplus is a statement of historical fact. The problem many folks have is they don't understand the difference between a budget deficit/surplus and the national debt.

From the CBO:


To get the deficit reduction you ignore any debt that isn't held by the public, which is very misleading. So yes there was a budget surplus but no, the national debt didn't decrease.

 

I would have to say that you are falling for the same tricks as most others that wish to believe Clinton had a surplus.

The CBO was fooled too. Garbage in, garbage out.

http://bloomingdale.patch.com/blog_posts/the-clinton-surplus-myth

 

Nope, pretty simple stuff. Your ideology is getting in your way unfortunately, but to your point you don't have to credit Clinton, you can give the credit to the .com boom. That might make you feel better.

Yes, there was a budget surplus, that can't even be argued. The debt is another issue and depends on what you include. Yes there are lots of blogs from folks who also have an ax to grind, but the raw data doesn't lie.

 

You can believe it was Clinton. You're right, the raw data does not lie. The fuzzy math does.

 

Presidents don't impact the economy as much as the partisan hacks want you to believe.

I's just not simple and so a lot of people are duped.

 

A lot of people have been duped by the impeached pervert.

 

That's a pile of snake oil, pal. The CBO has been wrong on just about everything lately, and this is no exception.

 

No, they dont understand how money borrowed from the SS trust fund doesnt count.

 

Actually "lately" doesn't quite cover it. Go back and look at projections for medicare. Not even close. In the CBO's defense, as is often mentioned, garbage in garbage out.
A good rule of thumb, take CBO numbers multiply by 5 and consider that the low end of possibilities.

 

Numbers don't lie, but go on believing whatever helps you sleep better at night.

 

At the 2000 Republican National Convention, George W. Bush said:

"Today, our high taxes fund a surplus. Some say that growing federal surplus means Washington has more money to spend. But they've got it backward. The surplus is not the government's money: the surplus is the people's money...Now is the time to reform the tax code and share some of the people who pay the bills".

Apparently he meant the rich, since his tax cuts benefited them much more than the rest of us.

 

Why would you think an article by a right wing computer programmer with no background in economics who doesn't understand what a budget is or surplus means is "good"?

Oh, it supports right wing views. That's all that is required for an article to be "good" from our conservative friends.

 

Screen wipe!

The bi-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the Office of Management and Budget, the Bush administration, and the Treasury department were all "fooled" because some right wing computer programmer says so.

Belief is easy when you simply ignore fact. We see it proven here every day.

 

It depends on whether you're looking at total or on-budget measures of the surplus. But there was a surplus either way in 2000.

 

These are measures of actuals, not projections, first published when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress.

 

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

/thread.

 

Anikdote is correct. You're mixing terms.

Go here. Learn the difference and try your thread again.

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/news/pressroom/pressroom_bpd08052004.htm

 

You boys will have to stop using the corrupted factcheck.org.

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/craigsteiner/2011/08/22/the_clinton_surplus_myth/page/full/

FactCheck.org Says Clinton Had a Surplus:

FactCheck.org repeats and uses the same government numbers that this article illustrates to be misleading. Further information on why the CBO's numbers (and FactCheck's numbers) are misleading is explained in my follow-up article this week.

http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/30

 

Ahh! I shouldn't trust the non-partisan FactCheck when it makes my "team" look bad, but I should trust Craig Steiner at Common Sense American Conservatism... anyone who does that is a complete and total idiot. I wish I had a nicer way to put that... but I just don't.

Regardless of what either of those two sites say, the number can be checked with multiple nonpartisan sites. The fact remains you're trying to tell a blatant lie.

 

Factcheck.org is anything but non-partisan. Look it up.

Sorry, but your boy Clinton, was just not as good as you thought.

 

Again, you are basing your position on a blog by a right wing computer programmer without an economics background who doesn't understand a budget, who for his argument cites a webpage that doesn't even have the word "surplus" or "deficit" in it, and who is completely contradicted by the bi-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the Office of Management and Budget, the Bush administration, and the Treasury department.

Here's a more appropriate place for you to make your argument: http://www.politicalforum.com/conspiracy-theories/