Is this true: Clinton Gore Paid off $360 billion of the national debt

[Jackson4Gore]

I am debating that it is. This person says the following:

Chris added this item as a Clinton/Gore economic accomplishment: "Paid off $360 billion of the national debt." I think the whole list is tangential to the Al Gore article; even a President has only limited scope for influencing macroeconomic performance, let alone a VP. As to this specific item, though, it would suggest to me that the total accumulated national debt was $360 billion less in January 2001 than it had been eight years earlier. Is there support for that assertion? Clinton/Gore inherited a huge annual deficit from 12 years of Reagan/Bush. The federal budget can't be turned around on a dime; the 1993 tax increase began the process of bringing the budget into balance, and the annual deficit declined each year thereafter, but it was still a deficit until the last year (maybe last two years) of the administration. I find it hard to believe that the tail-end surpluses equaled the total of six or seven years of deficits plus $360 billion. If the statement means, for example, that a FY 1992 deficit of $280 billion became a FY 2000 surplus of $80 billion, it would be more credible, but that's covered in the next item and wouldn't constitute paying off $360 billion of the national debt. JamesMLane 06:21, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

My original comment addressed this point, when I stated that the current wording "would suggest to me that the total accumulated national debt was $360 billion less in January 2001 than it had been eight years earlier." I think that's the most natural interpretation of the passage I deleted. Your citation confirms what I thought -- that the sentence, if so interpreted, is false. Instead, the basic patten is what I suggested -- that Clinton/Gore inherited an accumulated debt and a huge annual deficit; that the annual deficit was reduced during the first years of the Administration, but was still there, so that the accumulated debt grew rather than being paid off; that the budget moved into surplus only toward the end of the Administration, so that the reduction of the accumulated debt that occurred was less than the increase that had occurred in the first years of the Administration, i.e., Clinton left the debt larger than he found it.
This isn't a slam at Clinton (still less at Gore). Twelve years of unprecedented fiscal irresponsibility under Reagan and Bush couldn't be reversed in a moment. The federal government is like a huge ocean liner that takes time to change direction. But the correct statement of the Democrats' accomplishment is what's in the next item: "Converted the largest budget deficit in American history to the largest surplus." In this context, running a surplus naturally involves paying off debt. The $360 billion item adds nothing except confusion.
If, for some reason, you see value to the reader in re-inserting it, then it would have to be qualified so that the article correctly states the overall course of the debt during the Clinton/Gore years. It would read something like: "Paid off $360 billion of the national debt (although total national debt at the end of the administration was still approximately $1.5 trillion dollars higher than at the beginning)." (You can find the change in the debt as between any two dates at http://www.publicdebt.ustreas.gov/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/~www/opdpen.cgi -- the $1.5 trillion figure is the increase from January 1993 to January 2001.) If you re-insert the sentence in that form, I'll defer to your desire to include it, but I think the article is better off without it. JamesMLane 15:37, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)
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Government record clearly show just what the statement says. If any of you can give insight, I would appreciate it!

[tritsofme]

1. I had always thought that the national debt grew every year of his

Presidency, but I could be wrong. Even if ever so slowly in the late 1990s.

[NMDemDist2]

2. shoot, some DUer has a great graph of the deficit as a sig line

but i can't rmember who :(

[HFishbine]

3. You need DUer Papau

He knows this kind of stuff.

[gasperc]

4. yes, the surplus was made to pay down huge chunks of long term debt

I have always felt that the tax cut is partly a banking conspiracy so that the government is forced to borrow which in term keeps pressure on interest, kinda of a forced demand.

[BattyDem]

5. I don't know the numbers, but I do know one thing ...

The National Debt Clock, which had been displayed in New York City since 1989, was taken down in 2000 because debt levels started to decrease. (Thanks to Clinton.)

They put it back up in 2002. (Thanks to Shrub.) :mad:

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/business/DailyNews/debtclock020711.html

[supercrash]

7. Ummm...

I don't think the debt levels ever decreased, just slowed way down.

There were back to back record surpluses

[JDPriestly]

8. Here is what I found on Google.

http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/09/27/clinton.surplus

President Clinton announces another record budget surplus


President Clinton announced Wednesday that the federal budget surplus for fiscal year 2000 amounted to at least $230 billion, making it the largest in U.S. history and topping last year's record surplus of $122.7 billion.

"Eight years ago, our future was at risk," Clinton said Wednesday morning. "Economic growth was low, unemployment was high, interest rates were high, the federal debt had quadrupled in the previous 12 years. When Vice President Gore and I took office, the budget deficit was $290 billion, and it was projected this year the budget deficit would be $455 billion."

. . .


It is the third year in a row the federal government has taken in more than it spent, and has paid down the debt. The last time the U.S. government had a third consecutive year of national debt reduction was 1949, said the official.

The federal budget surplus for fiscal year 1999 was $122.7 billion, and $69.2 billion for fiscal year 1998. Those back-to-back surpluses, the first since 1957, allowed the Treasury to pay down $138 billion in national debt.

and a chart at http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=139


But, Jim Hightower says Clinton "balanced the budget" by taking money out of Social Security.

http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/3880

[lapfog_1]

6. Do a little google work

try this web site:

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm

Raw numbers you can put into your own graphs.

It's pretty clear that under repub admins in the last 40 years,
the debt (and deficit) are out of control, and under democratic
admins, things get much better.

[JDPriestly]

10. The numbers increase even when there is a "surplus," however,

because interest accrues and, I think you pay interest on the accruing interest. Does anyone disagree.

Clinton's feat was to have budget surpluses: to take in more revenue in a particular year than he spent, excluding interest on the debt, each year.

I may be wrong, but I believe there was a sort of understanding between Greenspan and Clinton that Greenspan would lower interest rates to heat up the economy if Clinton balanced the annual budgets. That may be a myth, but that is what I understood at the time.

[unblock]

12. debt servicing (interest) is already part of the debt

so a surplus mean you're actually paying down the debt.

[Tennessee Gal]

9. This might help!

http://www.lafn.org/politics/gvdc/Natl_Debt_Chart.html

United States National Debt - (1938 to Present)

http://www.cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/usdebt.htm

[unblock]

11. this is all technically correct, afaik

but it takes away the key point.

technically, the debt increased each year that we ran a surplus. this means every reagan year, every bush sr. year, and most clinton years. annual deficit, higher accumulated debt.

in the last few clinton years, the annual deficit turned into an annual surplus. i'll buy the $360b total figure, sounds about right for the combined surpluses or the 2-3 final clinton years.

DURING THIS PERIOD, the accumulated debt was paid down by $360b. the author is correct in stating that during the first 5-6 clinton years, the combined deficits were quite larger than $360b; therefore, the accumulated debt rose during the clinton years as a whole, despite the $360b paydown in the last 2-3 years.

so it's technically correct to say that "paid off $360b" is misleading in the sense that they paid down the debt $360b only after writing it up by $1.8trillion or so.

but the key point is that we ended up with an annual budget in surplus. meaning we were on track to continue to pay down the accumulated debt every year for as long as the eye could see.

to use his ocean liner analogy, the ship continued to go off in the wrong direction, but clinton managed to turn it around, get it pointed in the right direction, and started on the path back to debt freedom. the ship might have been further away than when clinton took over, but at least it was pointed in the right direction and all the next guy had to do was keep it steady. the default course was finally the correct one.


shrub of course, then came in and instantly veered back toward massive debt, full throttle with turbo boosters.