Smerconish On Cuomo "No One Has Addressed The Debt Since Simpson Bowles" Right Buddy

[DanieRains]

If the 1% paid taxes like I pay taxes, the debt would be paid off in 10 years.

Just sayyin....

[PSPS]

1. The national debt was poised to be paid off toward the end of Clinton's second term.

The republicans threw a wrench into it, as usual, to pay off their donors. This is one of the reasons the supreme court installed bush against the will of the voters.

From 1/26/2000, almost 22 years ago!

Clinton to Propose Early Debt Payoff - Los Angeles Times
ART PINE and NICK ANDERSON

WASHINGTON —

President Clinton said Tuesday that the budget he will send Congress on Feb. 7 will propose paying off the entire $3.6-trillion national debt by 2013--two years earlier than had been expected even a few months ago. At a news conference, the president attributed the opportunity for a speedup to an economy that is even stronger than had been forecast, resulting in higher tax revenue and lower expenses, and to his own austere budget policies. At the same time, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office issued revised estimates projecting that the federal budget surplus over the next 10 years is likely to top $1.9 trillion--substantially larger than the agency had predicted as late as December.

The CBO also acknowledged that, contrary to previous estimates, congressional Republicans managed to keep from draining any of the surplus in the Social Security trust fund in fiscal 2000, even though they breached the overall budgetary spending caps that Congress set in 1997. The agency’s estimates showed that, instead of dipping into the Social Security fund by $17 billion, as it had projected in December, the lawmakers actually would end up with the trust fund intact and a $23-billion surplus in the government’s operating budget.

Republicans quickly called a press conference to proclaim victory in their battle to prevent any further drain on the Social Security trust fund. “It turns out that we are right [and] the other side was wrong,” Senate Budget Committee chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) said. Tuesday’s developments set the stage for another yearlong battle over what to do with the burgeoning federal budget surpluses that the government is now projecting for the next decade. The latest projections are also expected to be converted quickly into cannon fodder in this year’s presidential and congressional election campaigns.

Republicans want to continue boosting defense spending and to enact sweeping tax cuts for those with the heaviest tax burdens--mostly individuals and couples in the middle- and upper-income brackets.

-- snip

From: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-jan-26-mn-57884-story.html