Time for Some Truth: Bill Clinton NEVER Balanced A Budget And NEVER Ran A Surplus

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

On Friday Former President Bill Clinton spoke at the dedication of a bridge at his Presidential library. During his address he complained that Republicans try to take too much credit for his welfare reform legislation and for balancing the budget. The two parties can argue about who was behind welfare reform, but no one deserves credit for balancing the budget. The truth is the United States federal budget was not balanced in any of Bill Clinton’s eight years as President. Not once!

The federal government has two types of debt public debt and intra-governmental debt. Public debt is comprises securities held by investors outside the federal government, including that held by investors, the Federal Reserve System and foreign, state and local governments Intra-governmental debt comprises Treasury securities held in accounts administered by the federal government, such as the Social Security Trust Fund.

Traditionally the annual federal government budget deficit or surplus is the cash difference between government receipts and spending, ignoring intra-governmental transfers. This is a trick as intra-governmental debt needs to be repaid just like the publicly held debt. This is also how Clinton claimed a surplus in three out of his last four years.(Source for all of the numbers below, US Treasury Direct).

These figures include the public debt but not the intra-governmental debt. Its like paying off your American Express card while ignoring the fact that your Mastercard over the limit and months past due. Your Amex looks great but your budget is not balanced.

When the Treasury department reports the National Debt (now at $14.5 trillion) it counts both public and intra-governmental debt. Clinton’s first full budget proposal in 1993 took effect in October 1993 and concluded September 1994 (FY1994) and his last started in October 2000 and ended in September 2001. Using those bookends and subtracting each year’s national debt from prior years, here’s the national debt at the end of each year of Clinton Budgets.

To be fair, Clinton’s FY 2000 budget came very close, it only added about $18 billion to the national debt, but in his last budget he was back up over $130 billion.

Despite what you may hear from Democrats on the campaign trail, there were no giant surpluses that Bush squandered (Bush did overspend, but there was no surplus to squander). The myth of Clinton balancing the budget and producing surpluses belongs with unicorns and and elves, in the realm of myths. The last president to preside over a balanced budget/surplus was Dwight Eisenhower, whose government saw surpluses of approximately $2 billion dollars in 1956 and 57.

Neither Bill Clinton nor any Republicans deserve any credit for balancing the budget in the 1990s, because the budget was never balanced.

http://biggovernment.com/jdunetz/2011/10/03/time-for-some-truth-bill-clinton-never-balanced-a-budget-and-never-ran-a-surplus/#more-341908

[Danno 1,228]

Now don't go crushing the Left's one (and only) claim that they governed responsibly.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Breitbart - pfft.

Q: During the Clinton administration was the federal budget balanced? Was the federal deficit erased?

A: Yes to both questions, whether you count Social Security or not.

FULL ANSWER

This chart, based on historical figures from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, shows the total deficit or surplus for each fiscal year from 1990 through 2006. Keep in mind that fiscal years begin Oct. 1, so the first year that can be counted as a Clinton year is fiscal 1994. The appropriations bills for fiscal years 1990 through 1993 were signed by Bill Clinton’s predecessor, George H.W. Bush. Fiscal 2002 is the first for which President George W. Bush signed the appropriations bills, and the first to show the effect of his tax cuts.

The Clinton years showed the effects of a large tax increase that Clinton pushed through in his first year, and that Republicans incorrectly claim is the "largest tax increase in history." It fell almost exclusively on upper-income taxpayers. Clinton’s fiscal 1994 budget also contained some spending restraints. An equally if not more powerful influence was the booming economy and huge gains in the stock markets, the so-called dot-com bubble, which brought in hundreds of millions in unanticipated tax revenue from taxes on capital gains and rising salaries.

Clinton’s large budget surpluses also owe much to the Social Security tax on payrolls. Social Security taxes now bring in more than the cost of current benefits, and the "Social Security surplus" makes the total deficit or surplus figures look better than they would if Social Security wasn’t counted. But even if we remove Social Security from the equation, there was a surplus of $1.9 billion in fiscal 1999 and $86.4 billion in fiscal 2000. So any way you count it, the federal budget was balanced and the deficit was erased, if only for a while.

Update, Feb. 11: Some readers wrote to us saying we should have made clear the difference between the federal deficit and the federal debt. A deficit occurs when the government takes in less money than it spends in a given year. The debt is the total amount the government owes at any given time. So the debt goes up in any given year by the amount of the deficit, or it decreases by the amount of any surplus. The debt the government owes to the public decreased for a while under Clinton, but the debt was by no means erased.

Other readers have noted a USA Today story stating that, under an alternative type of accounting, the final four years of the Clinton administration taken together would have shown a deficit. This is based on an annual document called the "Financial Report of the U.S. Government," which reports what the governments books would look like if kept on an accrual basis like those of most corporations, rather than the cash basis that the government has always used. The principal difference is that under accrual accounting the government would book immediately the costs of promises made to pay future benefits to government workers and Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries. But even under accrual accounting, the annual reports showed surpluses of $69.2 billion in fiscal 1998, $76.9 billion in fiscal 1999, and $46 billion for fiscal year 2000. So even if the government had been using that form of accounting the deficit would have been erased for those three years.

- Brooks Jackson

Sources

Congressional Budget Office, "Historical Budget Data," undated, accessed 6 Sep 2010.

[ready4ONE 5,400]

Awe Dog don't go raining on this here parade with none of them fancy facts! How dare you sir!?!

[Dan and Judy 614]

If we woulda squeezed the oil out of Iraq like a conquering nation should we could be swimming in the black right now.

[^_^ 5,021]

If we woulda squeezed the oil out of Iraq like a conquering nation should we could be swimming in the black right now.

In America, 'the people' (i.e. the military) do the conquering and private corporations do the plundering.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Breitbart - pfft.

FactCheck.org George Soros - pffft!

[Saddle Bronc 124]

On Friday Former President Bill Clinton spoke at the dedication of a bridge at his Presidential library. During his address he complained that Republicans try to take too much credit for his welfare reform legislation and for balancing the budget. The two parties can argue about who was behind welfare reform, but no one deserves credit for balancing the budget. The truth is the United States federal budget was not balanced in any of Bill Clinton’s eight years as President. Not once!

The federal government has two types of debt public debt and intra-governmental debt. Public debt is comprises securities held by investors outside the federal government, including that held by investors, the Federal Reserve System and foreign, state and local governments Intra-governmental debt comprises Treasury securities held in accounts administered by the federal government, such as the Social Security Trust Fund.

Traditionally the annual federal government budget deficit or surplus is the cash difference between government receipts and spending, ignoring intra-governmental transfers. This is a trick as intra-governmental debt needs to be repaid just like the publicly held debt. This is also how Clinton claimed a surplus in three out of his last four years.(Source for all of the numbers below, US Treasury Direct).

These figures include the public debt but not the intra-governmental debt. Its like paying off your American Express card while ignoring the fact that your Mastercard over the limit and months past due. Your Amex looks great but your budget is not balanced.

When the Treasury department reports the National Debt (now at $14.5 trillion) it counts both public and intra-governmental debt. Clinton’s first full budget proposal in 1993 took effect in October 1993 and concluded September 1994 (FY1994) and his last started in October 2000 and ended in September 2001. Using those bookends and subtracting each year’s national debt from prior years, here’s the national debt at the end of each year of Clinton Budgets.

To be fair, Clinton’s FY 2000 budget came very close, it only added about $18 billion to the national debt, but in his last budget he was back up over $130 billion.

Despite what you may hear from Democrats on the campaign trail, there were no giant surpluses that Bush squandered (Bush did overspend, but there was no surplus to squander). The myth of Clinton balancing the budget and producing surpluses belongs with unicorns and and elves, in the realm of myths. The last president to preside over a balanced budget/surplus was Dwight Eisenhower, whose government saw surpluses of approximately $2 billion dollars in 1956 and 57.

Neither Bill Clinton nor any Republicans deserve any credit for balancing the budget in the 1990s, because the budget was never balanced.

http://biggovernment.com/jdunetz/2011/10/03/time-for-some-truth-bill-clinton-never-balanced-a-budget-and-never-ran-a-surplus/#more-341908

Even WaPo (which is not exactly a conservative publication) admitted as much in a 1998 editorial where it called Clinton's "surpluses" acts of "creative bookkeeping".

[웃 910]

FactCheck.org George Soros - pffft!

You are SADLY mistaken!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12901-2004Oct6.html

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Media Matters, George Soros, Bill Ayers, Annenberg Foundation, FactCheck.org, it doesn't matter: They are all far left extremists sucking from the same pool of money.

[scandal 951]

Funny. If George Soros contributed, it was less than $1000.

http://factcheck.org/about/

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[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Funny. If George Soros contributed, it was less than $1000.

http://factcheck.org/about/

You have to check to see which foundations contributed to Annenberg Foundation, and if any of those are funded directly or indirectly by George Soros. (cough Tides cough)

[웃 910]

You have to check to see which foundations contributed to Annenberg Foundation, and if any of those are funded directly or indirectly by George Soros. (cough Tides cough)

Tides isn't mentioned

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Tides isn't mentioned

You noticed that too.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Is he running for office? Who cares?