i have no agenda. and i am not bending the meaning of the words.
but i think that having a budget surplus and not using it to decrease the debt is not responsible.
so, what happened with the surplus?
This is a topic that confuses people unfamiliar with government accounting.
A surplus is simply the excess of cash inflows, i.e. taxes, relative to cash outflows, i.e. expenditures. A surplus is when more money comes into the government than is paid out. That's it. No more.
For four years, the US government ran a surplus, i.e. it collected more in taxes and revenues than it paid out in expenditures. That money was used to pay down publicly traded debt and the total amount of publicly traded US federal government debt fell. That is a fact. It is not debatable. It is true that the operating budget, i.e. excluding social security and Medicare and Medicaid, of the US government was never in surplus but the unified budget, i.e. including social security and Medicare and Medicaid, was.
People get confused because the total debt rose and think that because the total debt rose, there couldn't be a surplus. This is wrong. Total debt rose because total debt includes the liabilities of the social security and medicare and medicaid trusts. But the liabilities for SS and Medicare/Medicaid are not necessarily affected by cash flows of the Treasury.
Government accounting is designed to confuse.
Publicly traded companies are bound by accounting rules known as Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, GAAP, which account for revenue, expenses, assets, and liabilities. So, can we count on government figures with the same degree of certainty?
a. Not exactly: the government uses the rules of the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board, FASAB. The rules are set by Congress and the White House.
b. The government's record-keeping was in such disarray 15 years ago that both parties agreed drastic steps were needed. Congress and two presidents took a series of actions from 1990 to 1996 that: Created the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board to establish accounting rules, a role similar to what the powerful Financial Accounting Standards Board does for corporations. USATODAY.com - What's the real federal deficit?
The system was summarized by Dickens:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, ...
or...Figures Dont Lie, But Liars Do Figure
You have to understand the figures first before you can understand if the figures are a lie.