Did we have a "balanced budget" under the Clinton administration? And what do we have now?

Question

Did we have a "balanced budget" under the Clinton administration? And what do we have now?

Answer 1

Yes we indeed had a balanced budget and surpluses under the Clinton administration.  Now, under Bush, we have huge spending, enormous tax cuts (esp to the rich), and much bigger national debt.

Spending on two wars with not much of a nice plan for them, giving tax cuts to the rich, and being fiscally irresponsible has hurt our economy a lot.

We were doing better under Clinton.  To be fair, I blame some consumers along with tricky companies (the ones that provide mortgages and tricked people into getting fradulent ones).  They wasted a lot of money by depending on credit.  They also bought a lot of homes...and the companies fooled them into buying bad mortgages. that's what also contributed to the economic problems now (thaks to people and companies feeling very comfortable during Clinton era).

However, I still blame Bush a lot for bad fiscal policy.  Here is a chart that shows how national debt rose A LOT under Bush and went down with Clinton (before going up during Bush's residency)

http://zfacts.com/p/318.html

that was debt as percent/ GDP.

Another chart that shows how debt has steadied during Clinton and went up a lot with Bush (tho to be fair it went up more when Reagan-RIP was in office)

http://www.cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/usdeb...

And one that compares deficit over the years. See how much deficit has increased with Bush?

http://www.uuforum.org/deficit.htm

yeah im not happy.

Answer 2

Seven mass murdering terrorist free years.

fs

Answer 3

We had a budget surplus which helped pay down the debt.  Now we have a huge deficit and a huge debt.

Answer 4

We did not have a balanced budget during the Clinton years but we were paying off the defecit.  What we have now is a gross misuse of the budget with a 9.2 trillion defecit.  When the great accountant GW Bush took office the defecit was at 5.7 trillion.  Do not let this man hear your checkbook lol.

Answer 5

We did have a balanced budget under Clinton and the republican congress. Now we have a parasitic deficit and spend government.

Answer 6

The U.S. has never had a balanced budget since it's inception, the Revolutionary War!  We have constantly been in debt either to ourselves via bonds, treasury notes etc & to other nations!  Look it up!  During the Clinton years we were in dept but not to the extent that we could not have taken care of it, the debt we are now in, although being paid down, is far greater than can be paid within the next generation or perhaps several generations.