This is the only reason that the White House can claim the unemployment rate has gone down. The unemployment rate is expressed as a percentage of the work force. The workforce consists of all employed civilian workers, all military and government employees and all those actively looking for work. When people quit looking, they leave the work force number and unemployment appears to have been reduced. Obama takes credit for reducing unemployment! Typical liberal bullshit! Just like Bill Clinton's alleged surplus...typical liberal bullshit!
It was a surplus. You obviously know nothing of economics...
No. There was no real surplus. Voodoo economics created one for Clinton.
Liberals can't admit to the truth!
You don't seem to understand on-budget and off-budget spending. Perhaps an economics course is in the future for you.
The Myth of the Clinton Surplus, Part II
There Was No Surplus
There is no two ways about it: A real surplus would cause the total national debt to go down.
Had the trust funds contributed $248.7 billion in excess funds and the government had reduced the public debt by $250 billion, that would mean it used all of the trust funds' excess funds to reduce the public debt and also used a real $1.3 billion federal surplus to reduce the public debt. That would've reduced the national debt by $1.3 billion and been a real surplus.
But if intragovernmental debt goes up faster than the public debt goes down (as it did in 2000), it means the government is simply borrowing and spending money from trust funds and will have to pay it back later. That's not a surplus, it's just borrowing money from trust funds instead of the public. The money was still borrowed to make up a deficit in the government's general fund.
The bottom line is that there was never a real surplus. As I said in my original article, Clinton's best year still represented a $17.9 billion deficit. Only by using misunderstood government accounting that doesn't clearly disclose trust fund income can one presume to claim there was a surplus.
The most accurate and useful way to calculate a surplus or deficit is simply to look at net change in the total national debt. It really is that simple. Since the total national debt went up every year under Clinton, there wasn't a real surplus. The government just borrowed money from trust funds instead of from the public, called the borrowed money income, and claimed to have a surplus.
Note: There is a discrepancy that I have not yet been able to resolve: Table 2 of the September 2000 MTS indicates that the public debt was reduced by $222.7 even though the public debt was reduced by $230.8 billion (a difference of $8.1 billion); additionally, table 6 schedule D reports increased intragovernmental debt of $246.4 billion even though intragovernmental debt actually increased by $248.7 billion (a difference of $2.3 billion). This represents a net discrepancy of $5.8 billion. I'm certain this can be resolved with the numbers in the MTS but, at this point, I have not been able to get the numbers to add properly to account for the difference. If anyone is able to account for the mysterious $5.8 billion, please let me know.
Note: The Clinton administration is not the only one that has used this rather deceptive form of accounting. All modern presidents have. To see the real deficits of Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, and G.W. Bush, please read this article.
Only the most stupid people on Earth are gullible enough to swallow that crap. Not only does it ASSume that no one retired, it ASSumes that no one left the workforce because they died, or got sick, or got injured, or left work to take care of a family member who got sick or injured. The IBD ASSumption is so moronic that only a CON$ervative could be stupid enough to swallow it!
