Paul Ryan and GOP fiscal hypocrisy

I'm not arguing that Clinton didn't manage a better budget than Bush. I'm arguing that he didn't run a surplus. You can claim he did if you want, but the numbers don't add up. Your graph doesn't say anything about deficits vs. surpluses; only that Clinton added less to the debt (ie, ran smaller deficits) than Bush.

I'm perfectly willing to concede that Clinton was better at the budget than Bush was. I'm even willing to concede that Clinton ran a surplus as a percentage of GDP. But I'm not about to concede that he ever ran a surplus.

The national debt went up every year of Clinton's presidency. This implies that Clinton had no surplus to apply to the debt. You counter that he did, but debt went up anyway. Your reasoning is that actual interest payments on the debt at the end of the fiscal year were higher than anticipated interest payments budgeted for at the beginning of the fiscal year.

If this is true, then it seems sensible to assume that the actual interest payment had to be sufficiently large not only to offset the anticipated payment for that year, but also to eclipse whatever "surplus" was applied to it, and then still large enough to account for the increase in the debt for that year.

In FY 1999's budget, Clinton (I think) budgeted $242 billion for the anticipated interest payment. The actual interest payment by fiscal year's end was $353 billion. That's a difference of $111 billion. For that year, Clinton supposedly ran a surplus of $123 billion. If that was applied to the national debt, than the debt would've gone down by $12 billion. It didn't. It went up by $113 billion.

Also, I dare you to add Obama's numbers to that graph.

 

It was because of trust fund accounting. Fund accounting is hard even for most accountants, and I can't explain it well. Here is a very good explanation in layman's terms, that is still kind of confusing.

Link

Yes. Clinton and the Republican Congress were much better fiscally than any of the iterations we have seen since. Its like they made a contract with America or something.

 

Because of accounting. He ran surpluses, but Social Security and Medicare needed safe places to park billions of trust fund dollars, so they bought Treasury notes.

 

It's not? Remember post #106?

That sure seems to be what you said.

Okay, so again, if we paid down the debt, how did the total amount of the debt increase? Since you I seem to have misunderstood your earlier point about actual interest being higher than anticipated interest, could you explain that?

Based on the fact that you posted a graph showing that Clinton increased the national debt by less than Bush and claimed that this meant he had a surplus, I'm beginning to think it is you who don't understand the difference between the budget and the national debt.

Your graph simply shows that inflation was increasing faster than the national debt or the economy was expanding faster than the national debt. That does not change the fact that Clinton never had a surplus. He spent more than he took in. That's a deficit, no matter how hard you massage the numbers.

 

See the link i posted in 113. Clinton ran surpluses and the debt increased because of how funds are accounted for, not because of deficit spending.

 

So we can ascribe $100 billion in additional debt to accounting methods?

As I understand it, the gist of this argument is that trust funds such as Social Security are legally bound to buy government bonds with any surplus they run. This increases government debt.

So the government still owes Social Security this debt. It's still debt that has to be paid, albeit internally. To claim money lent by Social Security as a surplus is dishonest. It's borrowed money, one way or another.

Your link states that by law, trust fund surpluses or deficits are to be included in the calculations of a budget surplus or deficit. So, from a legal standpoint, I suppose Clinton did run a surplus. I suppose the law could also include other debts the government takes on also as a surplus. Shrug. From an accounting standpoint, that's just fudging the numbers.