There might have been a budget surplus but we were still in debt. https://www.investopedia.com/us-national-debt-by-year-7499291 https://www.investopedia.com/us

There might have been a budget surplus but we were still in debt. https://www.investopedia.com/us-national-debt-by-year-7499291 https://www.investopedia.com/us-national-debt-by-year-749929... Here they show the debt increasing through the 90s but by less than most other decades. I don't know if it takes into account inflation though so maybe that would have made the debt have less value. Seems like they didn't use any of the surplus to pay off the debt.