Based on the trends over the last several years, we should be getting pretty close to a balanced budget under President Clinton. Should that be the case, are Republicans going to try to pull another Bush and call for huge tax cuts to destabilize the budget again or have they learned their lesson? I remember back in the day when Bush was asked about starting to pay down on the debt, he said something really moronic like "we don't want to pay any prepayment penalties." When asked about maintaining a balanced budget, he said "as long as we don't have any wars." I learned two things from those sentences very early on in Bush's tenure, 1) Republicans had zero interest in balancing the budget or reducing the debt, and) we were going to invade somebody come hell or high water.
Bush had zero interest in a balanced budget. He ran as a big government conservative, a "compassionate" conservative. He started the largest new entitlement program since the Great Society. Fiscal conservatives are only a portion of the Republican base. The only way to maintain a balanced budget is via a balanced budget amendment, which I'll note that Paul Ryan voted against the last time it was up.
And a heck of a lot of the GOP Congress that supported that are still in Congress...only now they're screaming about deficits...dishonestly as if they care.
A. We're al ot closer to a balanced budget than we were. B. Look how big that deficit got under the last Administration and how much better it's gotten under this one
It got much bigger under the last two years when the Democrats took control of Congress. Then it started getting better under this Administration once the Republicans took control of the House again.
It's actually pretty accurate. Democrats never cut spending. They never reduce spending. They just spend, spend, spend and tax and tax and tax. The only reason it wasn't worse in 2007 is because you still had more tax revenue from the economic growth which had been sustained due to the tax cuts. Then the Democrats of course tried to blame the financial crisis on Bush, when it was Clinton who signed the repeal of Glass-Steagal and promoted the banks giving out loans to people who couldn't afford them. And those things were at the root of the crisis. This is not to defend Bush. Bush is an idiot. It's to condemn Clinton and Obama, because liberals like to promote the belief that they're competent, when they're actually just as incompetent as Bush, if not more so.
Bush II did many things wrong. One thing he got right was the deficit. More accurately, Cheney got it right. He noted that "deficits don't matter." For Republicans and Democrats, of course, they only matter when the other power is in power. Deficits are an artifact - that is, they have no effect in themselves, as long as the overall economy is growing and healthy.
I agree that deficits aren't the be all and end all, but the last time the budget trended toward balance, the economy went into its longest period of sustained growth ever.
