Paul Ryan and GOP fiscal hypocrisy

There has been a lot of talk on this forum about Obama blaming the Republicans for the state of the economy so I decided to do some research and see how truthful his claim really is. Turns out that it isn't just a bunch of hot, political air after all.

When GWB took office in January of 2001 the unemployment rate was 4.3% and we were in our fourth consecutive year of budget surplus. The national debt, which was around 8.5 trillion when Clinton took office stood at about 10 trillion though it had actually been paid down from 10.5 trillion from the previous four years of budget surplus'. Long story short, we were on a sustainable path to paying off our debt.

With this in mind, GWB passed his first round of tax cuts in the summer of 2001 because, as he argued, the government should never take in more tax dollars than the government needs to survive. In most cases I would agree with that notion but not when we still owed 10 Trillion dollars in debt. Further, this fiscal faux pas was supported by the likes of Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor, the Republican parties shining examples of fiscal conservatism these days.

Then we were attacked on 9/11 and GWB responded well. No one can dispute this. In the days after 9/11 he did a good job in assuaging the nation and rallying the country around the cause. The mistake was when he went before the nation and told us all to go shopping, to go on about our lives and not worry about the war effort instead of asking us all to participate by rolling back his tax cuts.

Next, in 2003 GWB wanted another round of tax cuts. By this time we were running deficits in the area of a half trillion dollars per year but he wants more tax cuts. Guess what? Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor supported him again!

Lastly, in 2004 when GWB needed to get re-elected Medicare part D came along. Once more, guess who voted for Medicare part D? That's right. Your boys Ryan and Cantor. And I don't mean to pick on just those two because all of these things were supported by the vast majority of Republicans and a great many democrats too.

Now....these very same people want us to believe that they are the fiscal saints...the purists....the choir boys who are going to save the day.

I think Obama has a good point. He was handed a bag of shit and asked to make shinola out of it.

 

Clinton did not once run a surplus. National debt went up each and every year of his presidency. Running a surplus means your take in more than you pay out, and that means debt doesn't increase. It did. You can claim he ran a surplus as a percentage of GDP which is true. But that's not a budget surplus.

 

Per the CBO:

1998 - 69.2 billion
1999 - 125.6 billion
2000 - 236.4 billion
2001 - 127.3 billion (the 2001 budget was still Clinton's as there is a carryover from one President to the next)

Sorry, but there was indeed a surplus. I realize that there are right wing bloggers out there who like to use some fuzzy math to claim otherwise but facts are facts and the major economists, including Republicans, agree that there was definitely a budget surplus. Hell, the budget surplus that supposedly didn't exist was the very basis of GWB's argument for the tax cuts to begin with. Kind of hard to deny it now. I know it doesn't fit the current Republican narrative but these are the facts. Furthermore, it was also projected by the CBO in December of 2000 that if we stayed on the path we were on that we would have no national debt by 2010. Not only that but we were also on a course to have a budget surplus in Social Security and Medicare by 2010.

I challenge you to find credible testimony to the contrary. Good luck.

 

I challenge this statement by 2 facts.


All you are really doing is playing with numbers.

Fact # 1
IT is a FACT that the DEBT increased under Clinton. It is also a FACT that he DECREASED the rate of this debt, though INCREASED it overall..
Bush didn’t walk into office with money in the bank, we WERE still in DEBT.

Bush DID increase spending… DUH WE KNOW THAT ALREADY. Move on…



Fact # 2
It is also a fact that Clintons HUGE cuts came from the drawdown of military expenditures of the 1980’s. It’s not like he was just awesome, HE MADE FUCKING CUTS… He also increased some taxes and then cut taxes in 1997.

Spin it how you want…

 

I don't have to play with the numbers, son. This one is purely mathematical. It doesn't require the filter of Republican idealogues, it is what it is. The debt did increase by 1.5 Trillion under Clinton but it DID NOT increase during his final four years when we had a budget surplus.

By the way, I do realize that you guys are scouring the internet for some way to rebut this but you are going to be in for a long look.....

sometimes the facts are a bitch.

 

Per the US Treasury's website. Debt to the penny.
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

FY Ending 1993 - Total debt was 4,411,488,883,139.38
FY Ending 1994 - Total debt was 4,692,749,910,013.32 Deficit: $281 billion
FY Ending 1995 - Total debt was 4,692,749,910,013.32 Deficit: $281 billion
FY Ending 1996 - Total debt was 5,224,810,939,135.73 Deficit: $250 billion
FY Ending 1997 - Total debt was 5,413,146,011,397.34 Deficit: $188 billion
FY Ending 1998 - Total debt was 5,526,193,008,897.62 Deficit: $113 billion
FY Ending 1999 - Total debt was 5,656,270,901,633.43 Deficit: $130 billion
FY Ending 2000 - Total debt was 5,674,178,209,886.8 Deficit: $17 billion
FY Ending 2001 - Total debt was 5,807,463,412,200.0 Deficit: $133 billion

Thus endeth the right wing's fuzzy math.

 

Wrong again my friend; the fuzzy math doesn't stop right there. The numbers you have stated above from the US Treasury is part of a document that is produced every year called the "Financial Report of the US government." This report states what the US budget would look like if the books were kept on an accrual basis. However, the US government has always kept our books on a cash basis. The major difference is that under the accrual basis all future entitlement spending is tallied into the total. The Republicans have been crying about this ever since 1998 when we started running budget surpluses. Below is a link to factcheck.org which further states this position with a link to the Congressional Budget Office which provided the information.

Sorry Atreus but the fuzzy math continues.

 

I don't understand. The report I cited doesn't mention anything about the budget. It's just the public debt by year.

Does the treasure represent the total national debt or not?

EDIT: Upon further investigation of the factcheck article, it appears as though the government uses an accounting system in which they borrow surplus cash from trust funds, call this borrowed money income, and claim a surplus.

heh. No wonder Republicans have cried about this.

 

http://factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/#.T9pE2Bvlmco.email

sorry Atreus, just realized I never bothered to post the link....here it is.

I think this article will also clear up your point in the "edit" portion of your post.

 

I found it. Thanks.