P.S. — Any “surplus” you saw back then wasn’t the result of sound fiscal policy. It was directly attributed to a short-term burst in income tax revenue after the Roth IRA was established in 1997 and millions of Americans converted traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs — which required them to pay income taxes on their prior IRA contributions that had been tax-deferred.
Duck and Dive all you want, you said the budget had never been in surplus in your lifetime, which would make you less than 30 years old.
Clearly it was in surplus under Clinton, even if gimmicks were used, they would not work today because the deficit is so large and the budget has a deficit bias built in.