[groanup]

"one of my ultra-liberal classmates said that clinton had a surplus"

First, there never was a true surplus. Go to the Treasury website and find the talley for the national debt. Notice that it continued to increase during the Clinton years. The national debt was absorbed by Social Security. Next, recall that the congress was swept by Republicans in 1994. Go to Bigcharts.com and notice that the stock market really started to take off after that. The "surplus" had a lot to do with the lower capital gains taxes that astute people used to sell low basis stock while Republicans were in power and the on-fire Reagan/Republican economy that generated larger income tax revenues. Finally, look deep inside yourself and ask the question: Why doesn't anyone who nags about the deficit nag about spending? They only nag about taxes. Why?

[OOPisforLiberals]

Something I'm curious about because I've never seen a conservative explanation of things is : the Reagan era is lauded as having a huge economic turbo boost. But anti-Reagan people always come back with the "giant debt" argument. What's the proper way to refute this? AFAIK, the debt post-Reagan was enormous. Surely its effects are still with us.

What's the official line on this? (I'm asking this out of pure curiosity - this isn't a troll)

[t4texas]

I think the classmate was (enviously) referring to surplus of libido and bs.