Ever since I started posting here, I've seen in a number of threads with posts from a number of different people who claim that the budget surplus during the Clinton administration was a "myth," and that in fact there was no surplus.
The "fact" that there was no surplus under Clinton has been "proved" here "over and over and over" according to some like DiamondDave, who as of late taken to neg repping me for even asserting otherwise.
I don't know who was debating this point before I got here, but if it was "proved" over and over that a surplus under Clinton was a "myth" they weren't very knowledgeable. Or they get their information for the Murdoch "news" outlets.
So this thread is to settle the matter once and for all.
Those who claim that the surplus during the Clinton administration was a "myth" can use this opportunity to prove me wrong. And since it apparently has been proved "over and over and over" again to have been a myth it shouldn't be too hard to prove it one more time.
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Here' *my* proof that there was in fact a surplus:
The Congressional Budget Office is a non-partisan office that keeps budget records for Congress. You can see CBO reports on historical actual budget information in its website here:
http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9957/...bles09-web.XLS
Table 1 reports summary budget information, including two measures of the deficit (or surplus). "Total" includes SS surplus tax receipts (and has commonly been used by the Bush administration to measure deficits), and "on-budget" does not (and is therefore the more accurate measure, IMO, since SS taxes are not supposed to be used for general Govt expenditures). Because SS taxes have produced a surplus (about $200 billion) the last couple years, the on-budget surplus is lower than the "total" surplus (and conversely, the on-budget deficit is greater than the "total" deficit).
Follow the table down to the year "2000" and in the third column you can find that the "on-budget" surplus for 2000 was $86.4 billion. In 1999, there was a $1.9 billion surplus. You can see in the next column that the "total" surplus figures are even larger.
The U.S. budget does not include every expenditure -- for example, it has (prior to Obama taking office excludes "non-permanent" expenditures like the Iraq war. By excluding such things, the Bush administration was able to make the deficits look less severe. In 2006 and 2007, for example, the Bush administration claimed deficits of significantly less than $500 billion, while the US Govt actually had to borrow more than $500 billion in each of those years.
So looking at actual borrowing of the US Govt gives another picture of the deficit. For example, last year, the Govt borrowed over a trillion dollars, which is one way of measuring the size of the deficit Obama inhereted.
Did Clinton have a surplus using this measurement?
You can access the total debt of the US Govt from the Treasury Department's website, here:
Debt to the Penny (Daily History Search Application)
Total debt of the US Government:
12/31/1999 $5,776,091,314,225.33
12/29/2000 $5,662,216,013,697.37
The total debt of the US Govt decreased by $114 billion during 2000, Clinton's last year in office.
Showing a true surplus.
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So to DiamondDave or anyone else who claims the surplus under Clinton was a "myth," here's a chance to present the "proof" that has been shown "over and over and over" that this surplus is a just a "myth".
The "fact" that there was no surplus under Clinton has been "proved" here "over and over and over" according to some like DiamondDave, who as of late taken to neg repping me for even asserting otherwise.
I don't know who was debating this point before I got here, but if it was "proved" over and over that a surplus under Clinton was a "myth" they weren't very knowledgeable. Or they get their information for the Murdoch "news" outlets.
So this thread is to settle the matter once and for all.
Those who claim that the surplus during the Clinton administration was a "myth" can use this opportunity to prove me wrong. And since it apparently has been proved "over and over and over" again to have been a myth it shouldn't be too hard to prove it one more time.
+++
Here' *my* proof that there was in fact a surplus:
The Congressional Budget Office is a non-partisan office that keeps budget records for Congress. You can see CBO reports on historical actual budget information in its website here:
http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9957/...bles09-web.XLS
Table 1 reports summary budget information, including two measures of the deficit (or surplus). "Total" includes SS surplus tax receipts (and has commonly been used by the Bush administration to measure deficits), and "on-budget" does not (and is therefore the more accurate measure, IMO, since SS taxes are not supposed to be used for general Govt expenditures). Because SS taxes have produced a surplus (about $200 billion) the last couple years, the on-budget surplus is lower than the "total" surplus (and conversely, the on-budget deficit is greater than the "total" deficit).
Follow the table down to the year "2000" and in the third column you can find that the "on-budget" surplus for 2000 was $86.4 billion. In 1999, there was a $1.9 billion surplus. You can see in the next column that the "total" surplus figures are even larger.
The U.S. budget does not include every expenditure -- for example, it has (prior to Obama taking office excludes "non-permanent" expenditures like the Iraq war. By excluding such things, the Bush administration was able to make the deficits look less severe. In 2006 and 2007, for example, the Bush administration claimed deficits of significantly less than $500 billion, while the US Govt actually had to borrow more than $500 billion in each of those years.
So looking at actual borrowing of the US Govt gives another picture of the deficit. For example, last year, the Govt borrowed over a trillion dollars, which is one way of measuring the size of the deficit Obama inhereted.
Did Clinton have a surplus using this measurement?
You can access the total debt of the US Govt from the Treasury Department's website, here:
Debt to the Penny (Daily History Search Application)
Total debt of the US Government:
12/31/1999 $5,776,091,314,225.33
12/29/2000 $5,662,216,013,697.37
The total debt of the US Govt decreased by $114 billion during 2000, Clinton's last year in office.
Showing a true surplus.
+++
So to DiamondDave or anyone else who claims the surplus under Clinton was a "myth," here's a chance to present the "proof" that has been shown "over and over and over" that this surplus is a just a "myth".
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