Oh dear!
It seems there was a surplus some time in the near past. Maybe further back or maybe I’m a little delusional...
I dont think there has been a surplus since Pete Wilson was in office. Grey Out Davis and the Governator kept refinancing the debt to avoid paying the piper. Of course, you can’t do that now with interest rates higher.
There was a big surplus at the beginning of FY2007, I think it was (it might have been 2006, but I don’t think so). Revenue was rising fast and they still had some of the money left from selling the “economic recovery” bonds. They squandered it all, and then some.
They have always had a “structural deficit”—spending more in every given year than revenues for the same period. As such, this outcome was inevitable. You can’t just keep spending more money than you have without it catching up with you. Arnie’s been doing the smoke-and-mirrors game, trying to drum up cash wherever he could to keep the house of cards alive. It has caught up with him.
I confirmed... they started FY 2006 with a $9 billion surplus.