according the dems, we did have a surplus when BJ was in office, which of course is NONSENSE.
"according the dems, we did have a surplus when BJ was in office, which of course is NONSENSE.
Didn't BJ leave Bush a huge deficit? I thought that was the reason why we're still running deficits.
Looking at the total federal debt, that's true. Likewise, it's nonsense that Bush has cut the deficit to $250 billion. The following table shows the federal debt over the past decade as given by the Treasury Department:
TOTAL FEDERAL DEBT (billions of dollars)
Intra-
Fiscal Debt Held Gov't Total
Year End by Public Change Holdings Change Debt Change
---------- --------- -------- --------- -------- --------- --------
9/29/2006 4843.1 241.9 3663.9 332.4 8507.0 574.3
9/30/2005 4601.2 293.9 3331.5 259.8 7932.7 553.7
9/30/2004 4307.3 383.3 3071.7 212.6 7379.1 595.8
9/30/2003 3924.1 370.9 2859.1 184.1 6783.2 555.0
9/30/2002 3553.2 213.9 2675.1 206.9 6228.2 420.8
9/28/2001 3339.3 -66.0 2468.2 199.3 5807.5 133.3
9/28/2000 3405.3 -230.8 2268.9 248.7 5674.2 17.9
9/30/1999 3636.1 -97.8 2020.2 227.8 5656.3 130.1
9/30/1998 3733.9 -55.8 1792.3 168.9 5526.2 113.0
9/30/1997 3789.7 1623.5 5413.1
Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury, Bureau of the Public Debt,
online at http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpdodt.htm
As can be seen in the last column, the total debt increased $574 billion in the fiscal year that just ended, over $20 billion MORE than it increased during the prior fiscal year. According to the third column, the debt borrowed from the public did increase $242 billion, $52 billion less than last year. However, the government borrowed over $72 billion more from Social Security and other trust funds, increasing the total borrowing by over $20 billion. So while it's true that entitlements represent a large problem in the future, Social Security and some other trust fund surpluses are currently masking our true deficit. Hence, the true deficit problem is not getting better and is currently caused by the general fund, not by entitlements.
In 1998-early 1999, there was a projected surplus, if the same bubble that had CNBC screaming "NEW ECONOMY!!" as a way to justify bobsbaitshop.com going from a ice chest in a vacant lot to a $100 million stalwart of industry on the OTC, continued to grow at the same pace as the momo players were banking on us believing.