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To add to your point, the U.S. government suffered budget deficits every year from 1970 through 1997, then when Bill Clinton was president in 1998, the governme

To add to your point, the U.S. government suffered budget deficits every year from 1970 through 1997, then when Bill Clinton was president in 1998, the government finally recorded a surplus. There were also budget surpluses in 1999, 2000 and in 2001. 2001 was the last year the Clinton administration proposed the budget. Republican George W. Bush succeeded Clinton in 2001, and the US went back to having a budget deficit in 2002. https://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/02/03/cnn-fact-check-the-last-president-to-balance-the-budget/ https://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/02/03/cnn-fact-ch...

jfengel 4y ago
That's a bit of a coincidence. Bill Clinton presided over the original dotcom boom, which produced a ton of federal tax revenue without any actual work on the government's part. Bush Jr's deficits are due in large part to an economic crash that actually begun under Clinton, as the dotcom boom failed. Which doesn't really undercut the point: Republicans aren't actually very good at deficit reduction. Deficit reduction requires either increased revenue or decreased spending. They never substantially decrease spending (they always focus on a few small programs they're ideologically opposed to) and prominently run to decrease revenue. Their supposition that lower taxes will somehow increase revenue has never once worked in practice and was always ridiculous in theory. Democrats don't generally cut the deficit either, except for Bill Clinton's fortunate streak. But at least they don't pretend otherwise, and they don't present it as a tradeoff of "Sure, we're barbaric on human rights issues, but at least we'll lower your taxes while magically decreasing the deficit."