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If you look at federal budgets over the past 40 years [1] (select Presidents Trump through Carter) the only years with a budget surplus were budgets from Bill C

If you look at federal budgets over the past 40 years [1] (select Presidents Trump through Carter) the only years with a budget surplus were budgets from Bill Clinton. Each year of his term the deficits got smaller, until they became surpluses in the last three years. George W had a (smaller) surplus his first year, but then went back into deficit spending to fund the wars in the Middle East. I'm not sure how the timing works, but that first year surplus might have been due to Clinton too. As I recall, Clinton cooperated with a fiscally-conservative Republican Congress to get the budget in line. Rapid growth in the IT industry helped raise revenues as well. Unfortunately the Republicans turned against him at the end, and completely lost their fiscally-conservative policy standpoint. Deficit spending has just been getting worse and worse since then, regardless of who's been in power. http://federal-budget.insidegov.com/ http://federal-budget.insidegov.com/ [1]

CalChris 10y ago
> As I recall, Clinton cooperated with a fiscally-conservative Republican Congress to get the budget in line. Your memory is very incorrect. In Clinton's Address Before a Joint Session of Congress, he said that he wanted to raise taxes and cut defense spending (aka, right wing welfare). http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=47232 http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=47232 Newt Gingrich then rallied+campaigned against this and the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 received zero Republican votes. The fiscal conservatism was all Clinton; but the conservatism was all Republican. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_Act_of_1993 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_... Gingrich went on to campaign against this in the 1994 midterms. He went on to shut down the government twice to say nothing of the impeachment nonsense while he was cheating on his own wife. Gingrich was booted out by his own majority and was reprimanded by them for his own (lack of) ethics. No, Republicans get zero, nada, no credit for Clinton's budgets and his ensuing surpluses.

CalChris 10y ago

> As I recall, Clinton cooperated with a fiscally-conservative Republican Congress to get the budget in line. Your memory is very incorrect. In Clinton's Address Before a Joint Session of Congress, he said that he wanted to raise taxes and cut defense spending (aka, right wing welfare). http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=47232 http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=47232 Newt Gingrich then rallied+campaigned against this and the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 received zero Republican votes. The fiscal conservatism was all Clinton; but the conservatism was all Republican. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_Act_of_1993 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_... Gingrich went on to campaign against this in the 1994 midterms. He went on to shut down the government twice to say nothing of the impeachment nonsense while he was cheating on his own wife. Gingrich was booted out by his own majority and was reprimanded by them for his own (lack of) ethics. No, Republicans get zero, nada, no credit for Clinton's budgets and his ensuing surpluses.