[Intolerant in NJ]

Clinton was never interested in cutting the deficit (the year to year shortfall in the federal budget as opposed to the debt, which is the running cumulative shortfall in what is owed vs what is anticipated in revenue) - remember that famous montage of Clinton statements: “We could cut the deficit in two years - we might eliminate the deficit in eight years - we don’t have to worry about the deficit” etc etc - only when ‘pubs took power and forced him to bring it down did it actually shrink...and much of that was due to the cutting of defense spending under the assumption we no longer needed a big military budget -the so-called “peace dividend”...one reason Bush’s spending shot up so much was the need to restore defense cuts made by Clinton, especally after 9/11......

[Wooly]

During the Clinton years Robert Reuben converted and sold several treasury bond issues to make them payable from 2005 to 2007. By doing this the economy under Clinton looked better than it really was. But in turn it was a ticking time bomb for the next President. At the same time this appearance of flush times made it easier for congress and wall street to fly high.