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Originally posted by TigerDore:

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Originally posted by sig2392:
Clinton balanced the budget.

He raised taxes on the rich and cut spending.

This isn't accurate.

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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.

Verifying this is as simple as accessing the U.S. Treasury (see note about this link below) website where the national debt is updated daily and a history of the debt since January 1993 can be obtained. Considering the government's fiscal year ends on the last day of September each year, and considering Clinton's budget proposal in 1993 took effect in October 1993 and concluded September 1994 (FY1994), here's the national debt at the end of each year of Clinton Budgets:



As can clearly be seen, in no year did the national debt go down, nor did Clinton leave President Bush with a surplus that Bush subsequently turned into a deficit. Yes, the deficit was almost eliminated in FY2000 (ending in September 2000 with a deficit of "only" $17.9 billion), but it never reached zero--let alone a positive surplus number.

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Originally posted by chellim1:

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Originally posted by sig2392:
Clinton balanced the budget.
He raised taxes on the rich and cut spending.
We could do it again.

He saw the writing on the wall in 1994 when Newt Gingrich led the Republican revolution, bringing the Contract with America. Yes, Clinton signed the compromise and rightfully takes some of the credit... but he wanted to be re-elected in 1996. Unfortunately, the budget was only balanced in 1999, for just one of his eight years. It had a lot to do with the tech boom and capital gains taxes flowing in to the treasury.

Yes, We could do it again.

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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.

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Originally posted by oddball:
It is absolutely false, a lie spread by Democrats for decades.