I Have A Question For Republicans

[nat4900]

As a liberal, don't cry about the debt unless you are willing to make the American public suffer

For this nitwit, "liberals" are NOT part of the American public........(I think Nazi Germany would have agreed)

 

[eddiew]

The right says he never left a surplus. That's because they just simply changed what surplus means to claim it never happened.

This information is from the US Treasury:

09/30/2001 5,807,463,412,200.06
09/30/2000 5,674,178,209,886.86
09/30/1999 5,656,270,901,615.43
09/30/1998 5,526,193,008,897.62
09/30/1997 5,413,146,011,397.34
09/30/1996 5,224,810,939,135.73
09/29/1995 4,973,982,900,709.39
09/30/1994 4,692,749,910,013.32
09/30/1993 4,411,488,883,139.38


Please point out the year(s) of the Clinton surplus.

Mark

The Budget and Deficit Under Clinton

• By Brooks Jackson
• Posted on February 3, 2008 | Updated on February 11, 2008

1.3K


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.


FULL ANSWER

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.

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.

– Brooks Jackson

Sources

I am sure that "Brooks Jackson" is a capable author. Maybe he can explain to me why the official US government figures show no surplus?

Hmm? Who should I believe? Brooks Johnson or the US Treasury?

Tough choice, I know.

Mark

Why did the US national debt continue to increase during the Clinton surplus years?

--

The Clinton era surplus numbers look something like this:

1998 - $69.2 billion surplus
1999 - $125.6 billion surplus
2000 - $236.4 billion surplus
2001 - $127.3 billion surplus

Let's take one year to focus on - 2000. The "official" surplus number for that year was $236.4 billion. So the national debt must have declined that year, right?

Wrong.

Let's take a look at the numbers.

The total national debt on October 1st, 1999 was:

$5,540,570,493,226.32

The total national debt on September 30th, 2000 was:

$5,656,270,901,633.43

That's an INCREASE of over $100 billion, despite the fact that the country posted a surplus.

--

So what gives?

There are two things that happened here:

1) The "on-budget" surplus was actually much smaller than the number that included both the "on-budget" and "off-budget" numbers, which is the number that is widely reported by the media.

2) Any excess revenues from the Social Security trust funds are automatically invested in government-issued debt:

"Federal law requires that all excess funds be invested in interest-bearing securities backed by the full faith and credit of the United States."

--

Let's look at the first point.

There are currently three things that are considered to be "off-budget" in this day and age. They are:

-the two Social Security trust funds (Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund)
-operations of the Postal Service

Now, you could make a strong argument that an accurate picture of the budget of the United States would leave out the "off-budget" items, but the "official" number that is given out and reported by the media includes both the on and off-budget items.

Let's take a look at the 2000 numbers, courtesy of WhiteHouse.gov:

TOTAL

Receipts - $2,025,191,000,000
Outlays - $1,788,950,000,000

Surplus - $236,241,000,000

So, $236 billion surplus - Google it and this is the number that you will find as being the surplus for the 2000 fiscal year in the United States. It wasn't just the media that reported the $236 billion surplus - this number came from President Bill Clinton himself.

Now, let's take a look at strictly the "on-budget" numbers:

Receipts - $1,544,607,000,000
Outlays - $1,458,185,000,000

Surplus - $86,422,000,000

Still a surplus, but not quite as rosy as the $236.24 billion surplus.

Now, let's look at the "off-budget" numbers from that year:

Receipts - $480,584,000,000
Outlays - $330,765,000,000

Surplus - $149,819,000,000

Combine the surplus from "off-budget" items (mainly the two Social Security trust funds) and the "on-budget" items, and you are left with a surplus of $236.24 billion.

According to the OASDI Trustees Report, the OASDI (OASI and DI Trust Funds) brought in $568.4 billion and paid out $415.1 billion during the 2000 calendar year (source: 2001 OASDI Trustees Report). If you add this into the general budget number, you get a number that is quite a bit rosier.

From 1998 until 2012, let's look at the "official" surplus/deficit numbers vs the "on-budget" numbers:

1998

 

[nat4900]

businesses writing off their expenses is "welfare." got it. stupid mother ******

Curiously enough, the above reminds me of the only two tax returns that Trump ever submitted....They showed ZERO tax liability,while Trump realized millions in profits. Go figure

 

[nat4900]

People tend to vote their own interests. Do you deny this?

So, you're saying that whites on welfare who vote republican who want to cut welfare, are simply dumb idiots? (Now that you mention it...I actually agree.) LOL

 

[nat4900]

You are defecting AGAIN. You claimed that the majority of welfare recipients were white. The facts posted plainly show you were wrong.

No......all I was trying to say (perhaps poorly, I'd readily admit) is that whites REGARDLESS of percentile, eat up the lion share of welfare money.......I point that out because whites on welfare don't seem to be "bribed" as their black counterparts to vote democrat......which makes them either highly ethical or dumber than shoe leather.

 

[nat4900]

How dare businesses write off their expenses. Shouldn't be allowed, I feel you

So, if I manage to have a pretty good business profit one year, I can buy myself a Lear Jet and simply state that my business expense was more than my profit so screw you, tax man. Love capitalism.

 

[80zephyr]

Blacks make up 12.6% of the population, yet about 11.3 million blacks are on welfare.

TWO important factors to consider....(if your ha;k brains allows it)

First, what you wrote above is tantamount to ONE out of THREE blacks are on welfare......But,

Second, I won't bother to look up the validity of your figures, the point was and is and you morons have not addressed this question in 200 or so posts: I'LL BOLD THE QST. FOR YOU

IF AS ONE OF YOUR ILK ALLEGED, BLACKS VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS BECAUSE DEMOCRATS BRIBE THEM THROUGH WELFARE............WHY DO MOST WHITES WHO ARE ALSO ON WELFARE VOTE REPUBLICAN INSTEAD??? ARE THEY DUMB VOTING AGAINST THEIR BEST INTERESTS?

That was the ONLY point/question that I was making.....

No, it wasn't the question you raised. You raised the question AFTER I gave you the figures to refute your first question. As to the second question, knowing who someone votes for is hard to prove, since people vote in secret. However, there have been polls done showing that welfare recipients vote overwhelmingly democrat, like this one:

81% of people receiving public housing benefits vote Democratic – and that’s just the tip of the handout iceberg

Mark

 

[80zephyr]

How dare businesses write off their expenses. Shouldn't be allowed, I feel you

So, if I manage to have a pretty good business profit one year, I can buy myself a Lear Jet and simply state that my business expense was more than my profit so screw you, tax man. Love capitalism.

Not the way it works. You had better PROVE that the jet is for business, not pleasure. The government understands that buying that jet stimulates the economy, and they hope the purchase will help to cultivate your business so you'll pay more taxes in the future.

Mark

 

[leftwinger]

When Bill Clinton left a balanced budget with surpluses in line to completely eliminate the national debt by 2012, why did George W. Bush slash tax rates for the rich and double the debt from $5.7 trillion to nearly $12 trillion?

Can anyone here tell me the problem with having a national debt? And please avoid the ever popular "if you don't know then you're stupid" or similar responses.

Debt is so massive, when interest rates rise the economy will be crippled to pay interest only. The principal will never go down w/o drastic action now.

 

[80zephyr]

Figures lie and lies figure. Maybe you should ask your grandchild to explain it to you?

Mark

I know, I know...the only fonts of truth for your ilk is either Limbaugh or Hannity. LOL

In every instance, I have used official US government figures as a rebuttal. If you would limit your responses to the same types of references, maybe you wouldn't complain so much.

Mark

 

[80zephyr]

You are defecting AGAIN. You claimed that the majority of welfare recipients were white. The facts posted plainly show you were wrong.

No......all I was trying to say (perhaps poorly, I'd readily admit) is that whites REGARDLESS of percentile, eat up the lion share of welfare money.......I point that out because whites on welfare don't seem to be "bribed" as their black counterparts to vote democrat......which makes them either highly ethical or dumber than shoe leather.

And I have pointed out that the government doesn't agree with your "article". You accuse me of using sources like Limbaugh and Hannity, yet all you have used thus far is left leaning think tanks.

Mark

 

[80zephyr]

When Bill Clinton left a balanced budget with surpluses in line to completely eliminate the national debt by 2012, why did George W. Bush slash tax rates for the rich and double the debt from $5.7 trillion to nearly $12 trillion?

Can anyone here tell me the problem with having a national debt? And please avoid the ever popular "if you don't know then you're stupid" or similar responses.

Debt is so massive, when interest rates rise the economy will be crippled to pay interest only. The principal will never go down w/o drastic action now.

Honestly, I believe we are already at the point of no return.

Mark

 

[80zephyr]

As a liberal, don't cry about the debt unless you are willing to make the American public suffer

For this nitwit, "liberals" are NOT part of the American public........(I think Nazi Germany would have agreed)

They are not part of the American public? What are they...Germans?

Mark

 

[leftwinger]

Those debt numbers have been posted and linked many times. On and Off budget are in the Govt excel spreadsheet. Zeph80 numbers reflect "bottom line" as I recall. I refuse to dig it up for you spinners again.

 

[leftwinger]

Who ever said whites on welfare vote R?

 

[80zephyr]

The right says he never left a surplus. That's because they just simply changed what surplus means to claim it never happened.

This information is from the US Treasury:

09/30/2001 5,807,463,412,200.06
09/30/2000 5,674,178,209,886.86
09/30/1999 5,656,270,901,615.43
09/30/1998 5,526,193,008,897.62
09/30/1997 5,413,146,011,397.34
09/30/1996 5,224,810,939,135.73
09/29/1995 4,973,982,900,709.39
09/30/1994 4,692,749,910,013.32
09/30/1993 4,411,488,883,139.38


Please point out the year(s) of the Clinton surplus.

Mark

The Budget and Deficit Under Clinton

• By Brooks Jackson
• Posted on February 3, 2008 | Updated on February 11, 2008

1.3K


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.


FULL ANSWER

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.

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.

– Brooks Jackson

Sources

I am sure that "Brooks Jackson" is a capable author. Maybe he can explain to me why the official US government figures show no surplus?

Hmm? Who should I believe? Brooks Johnson or the US Treasury?

Tough choice, I know.

Mark

Why did the US national debt continue to increase during the Clinton surplus years?

--

The Clinton era surplus numbers look something like this:

1998 - $69.2 billion surplus
1999 - $125.6 billion surplus
2000 - $236.4 billion surplus
2001 - $127.3 billion surplus

Let's take one year to focus on - 2000. The "official" surplus number for that year was $236.4 billion. So the national debt must have declined that year, right?

Wrong.

Let's take a look at the numbers.

The total national debt on October 1st, 1999 was:

$5,540,570,493,226.32

The total national debt on September 30th, 2000 was:

$5,656,270,901,633.43

That's an INCREASE of over $100 billion, despite the fact that the country posted a surplus.

--

So what gives?

There are two things that happened here:

1) The "on-budget" surplus was actually much smaller than the number that included both the "on-budget" and "off-budget" numbers, which is the number that is widely reported by the media.

2) Any excess revenues from the Social Security trust funds are automatically invested in government-issued debt:

"Federal law requires that all excess funds be invested in interest-bearing securities backed by the full faith and credit of the United States."

--

Let's look at the first point.

There are currently three things that are considered to be "off-budget" in this day and age. They are:

-the two Social Security trust funds (Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund)
-operations of the Postal Service

Now, you could make a strong argument that an accurate picture of the budget of the United States would leave out the "off-budget" items, but the "official" number that is given out and reported by the media includes both the on and off-budget items.

Let's take a look at the 2000 numbers, courtesy of WhiteHouse.gov:

TOTAL

Receipts - $2,025,191,000,000
Outlays - $1,788,950,000,000

Surplus - $236,241,000,000

So, $236 billion surplus - Google it and this is the number that you will find as being the surplus for the 2000 fiscal year in the United States. It wasn't just the media that reported the $236 billion surplus - this number came from President Bill Clinton himself.

Now, let's take a look at strictly the "on-budget" numbers:

Receipts - $1,544,607,000,000
Outlays - $1,458,185,000,000

Surplus - $86,422,000,000

Still a surplus, but not quite as rosy as the $236.24 billion surplus.

Now, let's look at the "off-budget" numbers from that year:

Receipts - $480,584,000,000
Outlays - $330,765,000,000

Surplus - $149,819,000,000

Combine the surplus from "off-budget" items (mainly the two Social Security trust funds) and the "on-budget" items, and you are left with a surplus of $236.24 billion.

According to the OASDI Trustees Report, the OASDI (OASI and DI Trust Funds) brought in $568.4 billion and paid out $415.1 billion during the 2000 calendar year (source: 2001 OASDI Trustees Report). If you add this into the general budget number, you get a number that is quite a bit rosier.

From 1998 until 2012, let's look at the "official" surplus/deficit numbers vs the "on-budget" numbers:

1998

Sigh. Math doesn't lie. "Creative" accounting does. Please tell me, in any situation on the planet(other than our government) where an increase in debt equals a "surplus"?

In the book "1984" the public was forced to believe that 2+2=5. I had thought it to be a ridiculous notion, until I started posting on forums.

Mark

 

[BuckToothMoron]

When Bill Clinton left a balanced budget with surpluses in line to completely eliminate the national debt by 2012, why did George W. Bush slash tax rates for the rich and double the debt from $5.7 trillion to nearly $12 trillion?

Can anyone here tell me the problem with having a national debt? And please avoid the ever popular "if you don't know then you're stupid" or similar responses.

Debt is so massive, when interest rates rise the economy will be crippled to pay interest only. The principal will never go down w/o drastic action now.

I don't necessarily agree, the government can keep paying the interest by issuing securities to the Federal Reserve, and theoretically there is no limit to how big the Feds balance sheet to get. As long as the $ is the reserve currency.....what difference does it make? USA is the only company who can "mine" dollars.

 

[80zephyr]

When Bill Clinton left a balanced budget with surpluses in line to completely eliminate the national debt by 2012, why did George W. Bush slash tax rates for the rich and double the debt from $5.7 trillion to nearly $12 trillion?

Can anyone here tell me the problem with having a national debt? And please avoid the ever popular "if you don't know then you're stupid" or similar responses.

Debt is so massive, when interest rates rise the economy will be crippled to pay interest only. The principal will never go down w/o drastic action now.

I don't necessarily agree, the government can keep paying the interest by issuing securities to the Federal Reserve, and theoretically there is no limit to how big the Feds balance sheet to get. As long as the $ is the reserve currency.....what difference does it make? USA is the only company who can "mine" dollars.

Zimbabwe could "mine dollars" as well, since they print their own currency. Hows that working out for them?

Mark

 

[nat4900]

You raised the question AFTER I gave you the figures

You're funny...a bit delusional and stupid....but funny, nonetheless....Do you wash your hands thoroughly after you post?

 

[80zephyr]

You raised the question AFTER I gave you the figures

You're funny...a bit delusional and stupid....but funny, nonetheless....Do you wash your hands thoroughly after you post?

Well, I'm done. I can't debate a liar.

Mark