rulemylife
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quote:
ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy
quote:
ORIGINAL: tazzygirl
Now let's look at Clinton's tenure. Using the public debt figures, we see that the debt rose year by year during the first four fiscal years of Clinton's stewardship, then fell during each of the following four fiscal years, from a 1997 peak to a 2001 trough.
So using this measurement, Clinton is correct that "we paid down the debt for four years," though he did overestimate the amount that was paid down when he said it was $600 billion. The actual amount was $452 billion -- which was equal to about 12 percent of the existing public debt in 1997.
But what about gross federal debt? On this score, NewsBusters is correct: In each fiscal year from 1993 to 2001, the gross federal debt increased, because the increase in money in government trust funds exceeded the annual decreases in the federal budget deficit.
So by one of these measures, Clinton is correct, and by another, he's wrong.
Except one of those measures is a fiction.
If your income exceeded your expenses for the year by $10,000, until the last week when you take a $15,000 vacation and borrow $5,000 from your 401(k) plan to pay for it, did you have a surplus or deficit for the year? That is completely analagous to the fiction the dems try to perpetuate.
There was NEVER more income than spending under Clinton. THAT is the defintion of a budget surplus.
You need to make up your mind whether you are talking about deficit or debt.
There were clearly budget surpluses under Clinton. I've shown you the official numbers before, so if you want to continue to dispute that then you are going to have to document what you say or it's going to be assumed that it is the usual Willbeur bullshit.
Now if you are talking about debt, a person taking money from their 401k does not put that person in debt to himself.
Which is what you are trying to argue, that the national debt should be viewed in terms of gross rather than public debt.
The generally accepted standard is public debt, and by that measurement the Clinton surpluses did reduce the national debt.
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities-Recommendation That President’s Fiscal Commission Focus on Gross Debt Is Misguided-May 2010
Debt held by the public consists of promises to repay individuals and institutions — in the United States and abroad — who have loaned the federal government money to finance deficits. Gross debt includes, in addition to the debt held by the public, so-called intragovernmental debt —money that one part of the federal government owes another part.
More precisely, intragovernmental debt consists of promises to repay certain federal government accounts, such as the Social Security Trust Funds, for amounts they lent to the Treasury in years when their earmarked revenues exceeded their outgo for benefits and other costs.
Most economists agree that the debt held by the public is what really affects the economy.
The Congressional Budget Office wrote in a 2009 report that government-held debt, such as the Social Security trust fund, "has no direct, immediate impact on the economy.
Instead, it simply represents credits to the various government accounts that can be redeemed as necessary to authorize payments for benefits or other expenses."
By contrast, CBO wrote, "long-term projections of federal debt held by the public, measured relative to the size of the economy, provide useful yardsticks for assessing the sustainability of fiscal policies."
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