“Budget was never balanced. Debt went up every year”
Your facts are wrong...Gingrich presided over the only balanced budgets in a long time...persuading Clinton to come along, a political fete rare in occurrence.”
The national debt has gone up every year since 1957. However, the “surplus” Social Security taxes collected during that time period actually contributed to the National Debt, because they are “invested” in special issue Treasuries.
Newt did balance the budget, so that the spending did not exceed the incoming funds from all sources. Clinton then took credit and claimed that he had turned a deficit into a surplus.
LSM pointed out about once that the “surplus” was actually the excess Social Security. Then, realtiy was ignored as both parties argued about how to spend the non - existent surplus.
I agree with you that it was quite a feat to balance the budget, even though it did not bring down the National Debt.
“I agree with you that it was quite a feat to balance the budget, even though it did not bring down the National Debt.”
The National Debt is the accumulation of all annual budget deficits. If there is a budget surplus, which there was for several years the debt should decrease.
So, technically you are right that the National Debt did not decrease. But only because of interest payments.
So, to be technically correct, let’ say that under Speaker Gingrich and Kasich’s watch, there were surpluses and payments were made against the Principle of the National Debt. Again, a huge accomplishment.