Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (67725)	10/23/2008 9:09:49 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Every year of the Clinton Admin the Gov't continued to increase that amount it borrowed. So no matter how you slice it the deficit increased under Clinton every single year. Yes and no. If A = The amount of income, other than payroll taxes that feed in to entitlement programs. and B = The amount of government spending on non-entitlement programs. then B was more than A every single year under Clinton. If you look at the SS and Medicare trust funds as if they where separate from the government, than government borrowed every year because the government borrowed from these funds. But those funds are part of the government, so when the government borrows from them, its like me borrowing from my 401K. It does get recorded as a loan, but I'm not really borrowing anything. So in a very real sense Clinton did have balanced budgets. OTOH 1 - Even though its not really borrowing for the government as a whole, there is the fact that the government accumulated effectively unfunded future liabilities under Clinton, during every year of his administration 2 - The Republican congress has to get a very big share of the credit for the improved fiscal situation. 3 - The circumstances where very conducive to a better fiscal balance.