Clinton had real 10 year projected surpluses of $5 trillion.
And unrealistic projections even before the tax cuts, wars, and drug plan, and 9/11.
The combination of 9/11, two Bush wars, two Bush tax cuts, and one Bush drug plan not only wiped out those projected surpluses, but resulted in a doubling of the debt
Their where no massive realistic surpluses to wipe out, at least not $5tril worth.
And the extra debt had more to do with extra spending for things other than 9/11, the drug plan, and the wars, than it had to do with spending for those things (even collectively) or the tax cuts.
you need to understand what he inherited and what he passes on to his successor
Bush inherited a recession, he inherited a military that had been shrunk perhaps too much. Clinton inherited a recovery (which started before he was elected, not just before he took office), and the peace dividend (both in the sense that the end of the cold war allowed cuts, and in the sense that the military was well stocked by Reagan's build up enabling Clinton to cut spending while still leaving our armed forces very well equipped. Clinton had a congress that care about deficits and restraining deficits. Bush had a congress (both when it was under Republican leadership and after the Dems took over) that loved to spend. Clinton had peace, a stock market bubble (that contributes more to the government's fiscal balance than a real estate bubble since a lot of real estate is effectively immune from capital gains tax), and generall favorable conditions. Bush had much less favorable conditions.
Now after adjusting for all of that I still give Clinton higher marks for managing the fiscal situation than I give Bush, just not as much as a simple comparison of the numbers would suggest.
Now for Obama, we know he inherited a $5 trillion projected deficit. He's now turned that into an $8 trillion projected deficit. Let's see where he stands in 2016. If he exits his 8 years with a $5 trillion projected deficit or less, then we can say he did an excellent job at managing the budget.
I think $5tril or less to be very unlikely. If he does do it by a small amount (say $4.5 tril) I would not consider it even to be a good job, let alone an excellent job.
The $5tril projection was for 10 years, your only counting 8 if your counting 2 terms for Obama. Also just meeting or barely beating a projection does not make for an excellent job when you've had 8 years.
Also I consider our "fiscal insanity" to be as much or more about spending than it is about deficits. If we had a large tax increase that in 4 years brought our deficits down to zero, the entitlements would still give us a fiscally "insane" position, and Obama's just adding to that with "reform", and to a noticeably greater extent than Part D did.
If he's under $5tril for his term, I might say he did "better than Bush" (but I might not, I'd have to consider the spending changes, and esp. entitlement changes, not just the deficit levels), but "better than Bush", hardly implies "excellent".
Another thing is you seem to make too sharp of dividing line. Better than $5tril is "excellent", worse is "contributing to our fiscal insanity". Perhaps we should pass through "good", to "fair", to "poor", before we get to "insane". It doesn't have to be "Pass/Fail" you can give out other types of grades. |
