[Leaning Right]

> I can’t recall a president ever vetoing a budget. When was the last time? <

I don’t know. But the last president to preside over a balanced budget was…Bill Clinton. Many Republicans minimize that accomplishment. They talk about favorable tax rates, Newt Gingrich running the House, etc.

Maybe they’re right. But the fact remains. In the last years of his presidency, Clinton consistently moved the deficit numbers in the right direction. No recent president before or after him can claim that.

[Observator]

In the last years of his presidency, Clinton consistently moved the deficit numbers in the right direction. No recent president before or after him can claim that.

You know how to read a bar chart?

[central_va]

Maybe they’re right. But the fact remains. In the last years of his presidency, Clinton consistently moved the deficit numbers in the right direction. No recent president before or after him can claim that.

Bull crap. Clintoon projected deficits out to forever until the HOR went R. Many of us remember what actually happened.

[fastkelly]

If true, why did the National Debt increase by 18 Billion in 2000?

[fastkelly]

The US deficit does not include off budget items like the Post Office and Social Security. So if you increase Social Security taxes and steal the surpluses temporarily for a short time and fund some on budget items you can cook the books and balance the budget for one year. But it is the end of your 8 year term limit and the newly elected admin must replace SS trust fund bonds with newly borrowed money which explodes the new debt.

[Alberta's Child]

Clinton did no such thing. He signed every spending bill that crossed his desk. It was the tax reform bill of 1997 that precipitated this brief interlude in massive deficit spending.

The brief period of “no deficit” was the direct result of two things:

1. Lower capital gains tax rates that caused a major boom in the U.S. economy.

2. The flood of new tax revenues generated by conversions from IRAs to the new Roth IRAs that were established under the 1997 tax changes.

[TwelveOfTwenty]

Maybe they’re right. But the fact remains. In the last years of his presidency, Clinton consistently moved the deficit numbers in the right direction. No recent president before or after him can claim that.

Clinton had several things in his favor.

The end of the Cold War, and an economy that had already transitioned from Cold War to peace time.

The Tech Boom and Y2K and the tax revenue they generated, both of which were over before he left office.

He effectively punted dealing with Bin Laden terrorism and its cost to the next president, in spite of the numerous attacks that occurred on his watch. The media kept our attention off of this and on all of the jobs created by the Tech Boom.

It was Clinton who gave China MFN, which unfortunately the Republicans largely supported. Remember the debate between Gore and Perot, where Perot warned of the sucking sound while Gore threw out a bunch of nonsense statistics? Yup, that was Clinton who sabotaged our economy even as he was taking credit for it.

What does any of this have to do with our deficits, you ask? The tax payers who would have been in the US and paying into our infrastructure and military were replaced with tax payers in China paying into China's instead.