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Easily one of the best articles ever written on the entire Clinton “surplus”.

Folks are totally blind to the fiction that the “budget” does not include inter- and intra-government transfers (like SS) and that the National Debt increased every year Clinton was in office indicating that there was no bottom line surplus though the budget was generating cash.

The politics of the situation may have been the special sauce. Gingrich’s Congress slowed the rate of growth. SLOWED THE RATE OF GROWTH

They did not cut anything.

That is all that is required now — to cut the rate of growth and then to trigger some growth.

This article should be required reading and some folks should have to get it tattooed on their chests.

Well played.
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I read an interesting take on Clinton’s surplus and where it came from http://www.businessinsider.com/how-bill-clintons-balanced-budget-destroyed-the-economy-2012-9

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Si, nobody remembers that. Even dumb old Bush was able to make a positive number appear.
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was that a surplus in ’01?

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It did not change Reagan. And that may have been his genius. It seems to me that politicians go to DC and arrive in awe. Reagan had nothing to be awestruck about. He knew everyone and he was a huge man in Hollywood. Plus he had real charm and style.

He was a two time Governor of California and thus had all the administrative skills and governing sense of process.

I recently read a compilation of his personal letters and was struck at how much in command this guy was. He was not afraid to reject the advice of career diplomats in the State Department.

Everything I see with our current President strikes me how he operates on the ragged edge. He is always just an inch from disaster and tone deaf to boot.
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I guess the notion that Washington changes people is true even in the case of Bush!

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Everyone has gotten so wrapped up in their Bush-hating underwear that nobody is willing to admit how good the revenue was under Bush. Those deficits look like Heaven now.

Even Bush let the spending get away from him — Medicare drug benefit, Iraq war, A’stan war, Dept of Homeland Security.

Most of that could have been avoided and he would have been running huge surpluses.

Funny thing is that as Governor of Texas, he was as tight fisted as a tick.

You can’t eat 10 cheeseburgers a day.
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