Looking for some help debunking this email - Clinton and Surplus

[liberal N proud]

I received this little email from a southern redneck who has made a religion out of hating the Clinton's.
This all started when he sent an email commenting how hot Palin was to which I replied that I hoped he didn't base his vote on looks. He then tore into the Clinton's blaming them for 9/11 and the current economic problems. Yeah, they are still hating the Clinton's.

Here is the message the link is to a commentary site that when you go looking supports the McCain Palin choice and calls it genius.

I just want to slap back in this rednecks face facts that substantiate the Clinton budget surplus at the end of his term. I know some here are experts at national budget and would love to hit this sucker with truth.


Anyone who thinks Clinton ran anything close to a
budget surplus is wrong.

http://www.letxa.com/articles/16

[liberalmuse]

1. This visual might help...

[lumberjack_jeff]

2. Or this

and how the deficit affected the debt


http://zfacts.com/p/gross-national-debt.html

[EOTE]

3. That chart certainly shows the difference between Clinton and *

However, it still shows Clinton with deficits for those years (although it's kind of hard from that graph to determine if he broke into surpluses his last year).

[lumberjack_jeff]

7. The vertical scale is odd.

But he ran surpluses in at least two years.

[liberal N proud]

4. That at least shows its source of information - The Government

Thanks

[dems_rightnow]

5. Your definitive answer

Because they play "off books games", the ONLY way to tell if there was a deficit or not is to look at the amount of outstanding debt. If it increases, the government spent more than it took in. The US Government uses a September 30 year-end for budgets. At no time in the recent past has debt decreased, it's always been a deficit for the year, increasing debt.

Clinton didn't quite get to a surplus in his best year, but almost.

Total debt:
9/30/2000 5,674,178,209,886.86
09/30/1999 5,656,270,901,615.43
09/30/1998 5,526,193,008,897.62

So 18 billion was the deficit during Bill's final budget year. (5,674t - 5,656t). Very, very small, but still a deficit.

Here's your historical debt amounts:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt.htm


Edited for typo.

[dems_rightnow]

6. Damn, I hadn't even looked at the site

I see it says the same thing I did. Factually, he's right in most of what's there. If there were a surplus, the debt would have decreased, and it did not.

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. There's an argument to be made that Social Security shouldn't count.

By law, the Social Security Trust Fund can only be invested in federal treasury notes. If surplus SS taxes are collected, the government is obliged to issue bonds to cover them.

[MadHound]

9. Well, actually Clinton's policies did, to a large extent, adversely effect our economy now

His repeal of most of the Glas Steagal act, along with a lot of other legislation that deregulated the financial sector in this country did indeed set the stage for our current problems. If those regulations hadn't been gutted, we wouldn't be seeing near the sort of of mortgage meltdown we're seeing now. Inconvenient truth, but there it is:shrug: