Was there a deficit right at the very end of Bill Clinton's...?

Question

presidency?

I hear a lot of Republicans say there was,and I hear a lot of Democrats say there wasn't

I would like an educated answering and not trashing the other side. Also,please provide a legitimate source for your claim. Thank you :D

Answer 1

I'm glad someone brought up the issue of balanced budgets. The first budget that President Clinton presented to the Democratic congress was a balanced budget. And, not a single Republican voted for it. While Clinton was in power, the Republicans repeatedly talked about a "balanced budget" amendment to the Constitution. Once Bush came into power, all that talk disappeared as Republicans produced one deficit budget after another.

Answer 2

think about it this way, was gas this high, where business closing like they are know, where companies laying off worker like they are know, was the price of food this expensive and has the president approved the oil reserves to be used to lower the demand for oil. Republicans love blaming clinton and they still are after hes been gone 8yrs ago.

Answer 3

http://clinton5.nara.gov/WH/Accomplishme...

http://www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Bill_Cl...

Answer 4

For perspective, under Clinton the Congress was dominated by Republicans for 6 of his 8 years in office.

Answer 5

Bill Clinton left office with a record low deficit.

CREATING ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY AND SECURITY FOR ALL AMERICANS

Signed the Economic Package, August 10, 1993.

The economy created 7.7 million new jobs in the first 34 months of this Administration.

Passed the largest deficit-cutting plan in history -- saving more than $1 trillion over seven years.

On track for three consecutive years of deficit reduction -- for the first time since Harry Truman.

Cut federal spending by $255 billion over 5 years.

Made new tax cuts available to over 90% of small businesses.

Unemployment has fallen from 7% when President Clinton took office to its current rate of 5.6%

Lowest combined rate of unemployment and inflation since 1968.

1994 real GDP growth was the highest in a decade.

Proposed a plan to balance the budget while protecting critical investments in education.

Answer 6

No, we were in a surplus.  That answers your specific question.

One source-

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS...

Type in Bill Clinton Surplus into your search engine and you can find the truth.  

The economy is always a changing thing, but Clinton kept the growth for his entire 8 years, as well as keeping unemployment down.  It was up to the following President (Bush) to keep up with a growth or manage the slide.  Bush was unable to do so, thus our economy has gone into a slump.  

Answer 7

There was 5.7 trillion dollars of deficit in the year 2000 and this was also the year that the stock market bubble burst starting the downhill slide. But the attack on 9-11 was a real back breaker for the market.

Answer 8

well all I know is that the country was in a depression by January 2001 and I don't see how the media could paint Bush as responsible for the depression when he was just finished being inaugurated... remember, if Gore was elected instead of Bush, there still would have been a depression... how would the media be able to explain that?

Answer 9

Its the usual lies they like to try and make reality.  Clinton left the White House with a balanced budget for the first time since Lyndon Johnson (another Democrat) and even gave Bush a surplus which he quickly turned into the largest deficit in US History.  Yes, Republicans will say anything to get their way...shoot, Bush lied to Congress so he could invade Iraq (Al-Qaeda connection to Saddam?  none...WMDs?...None). Why would you be surprised to hear another pack of BS?

Answer 10

There was a surplus in the national budget at the end of the Clinton presidency, however the national debt accrued primarily from the Reagan years remained astronomical. The Clinton surplus should have been used to begin to reduce the debt, but instead Bush instituted tax breaks and increased spending.

Answer 11

The deficit is not the same as  the debt. Clinton did infact have a small surplus. However that surplus was not enough to pay the interest on our national debt.

When clinton left office, the national debt was about $6 Trillion or

$6,000 Billion

$6,000,000 Million

$6,000,000,000,000.00

It is now at about 10 Trillion, or about $70,000.00 debt for each employed man and woman in america.

As the graph linked below shows, clinton did slow the national debt creation, though he came nowhere near reducing it. Bush hit the acceleration.

So again, you must understand deficit and surplus refers to the yearly leftovers (or lack of), NOT the entire accumulated national debt.

Reminds me of a slick thing Obama said. "Clinton left us with a surplus, and now we are 10 trillion in debt." Major word play, deceptive and typical of politicians.

Looking at the chart, can you figure out why we had no debt before 1938? Hint: A criminal system Rosevelt created to give a private group the ability to create inflation and debt.

Answer 12

you'll have to look that up from the government web site

The Clinton's and their followers like to point out that the Government was posting surpluses while Clinton was in office--THIS IS TRUE--SORT OF.

The majority of the time Clinton was in Office the Government ran deficit's.

Only after the Republicans in the House and Senate forced Clinton to deal with a balanced budget did we actually start seeing a surplus.

This Surplus was --"EXTRAPOLATED" out far into the future to show that it would eventually rid the USA of Debt.--This is not a very reasonable way to do this but it was done.

The last six months of the Clinton administration saw the USA economy in decline--which resulted in Taxes to the Government decline.---Look at the NasDaq and dow jones from the Summer of 2000 to the following year---you will see a noticable decline.

Bush has managed to put the country far into debt more than Clinton--this is largely and for the most part--wrongly contributed to the war in IRAQ.  ( the Iraq war has cost less than a TRILLION DOLLARS) the US DEBT has grown almost 4 trillion since Bush took office.---if I had to pick one of my greatest dissappointments with BUSH it would be This ballooning of the deficit and ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION.

Answer 13

The U.S. has had a deficit since WWI.