clinton paid down the debt?

Question

these are the official numbers from the treasury dept. the debt increased every single year under clinton

09/28/2001 5,807,463,412,200.06
09/30/2000 5,674,178,209,886.86
09/30/1999 5,656,270,901,615.43
09/30/1998 5,526,193,008,897.62
09/30/1997 5,413,146,011,397.34
09/30/1996 5,224,810,939,135.73
09/29/1995 4,973,982,900,709.39
09/30/1994 4,692,749,910,013.32
09/30/1993 4,411,488,883,139.38

debt increased every year. there was no paying down of the debt because there was NO SURPLUS. clintons accounting gimmics included not counting the interest on the debt( like every other president before and since), taking social secuirty off the books, and defunding the military...still NO surplus, the debt climbed higher and higher. clinton claims he paid off over 1 trillion in debt. where? LOL dont drink the liberals tax and spend kool-aid.

for the trolls on here..im gonna this truth every day im on here. so u can not answer it every day. ;)

every president inherits the interest. i dont see anyone deducting the interest when they mention the debt today. you cant have it both ways. and if nationalization of healthcare hadnt been stopped by a republican congress the debt would have been three times as bad as it was already under clinton

Answer 1

You will never get the liberals to acknowledge that Clinton did not actually pay down the debt.

I just wish my bank felt the same way about me!

Imagine my debt going up every year and the bank thinks I'm paying it off!

But my debt as a % of my wealth is less than it was, so it's OK, right?

Answer 2

The government has been borrowing the Social Security surplus and spending it on general government programs for several years. The net effect has been to disguise the true size of budget deficits in past years. For example, in fiscal year 1995, the government experienced a $226.4 billion deficit in its operating budget. However, since the Social Security Trust Fund had a surplus of $62.4 billion that year, the government simply borrowed the Social Security surplus and spent it as part of it general operating budget. The $62.4 billion Social Security surplus was deducted from the $226.4 billion deficit and the government reported an official deficit of only $164 billion.
In 1997, since there was a surplus in the Social Security Trust Fund of $81.4 billion, the actual $103.4 billion on-budget deficit was reduced by that amount and the government reported a total deficit of only $22.0 billion. It was in 1998 that the American people first had the wool pulled over their eyes on a grand scale. In that year, the operating budget of the federal government was still in the red with an actual deficit of $30 billion. It was the $99.2 billion surplus in the Social Security Trust Fund that enabled the government to report a budget surplus of $69.2 billion. During a year in which the United States Government spent $30 billion more than it collected in general revenue, it announced that there was a $69.2 billion overall surplus!


From that point on, the American people seemed to believe that there truly was excess money in the federal budget, and cunning politicians began building schemes to further mislead the people into believing that money was available for new programs and/or for cutting taxes. Any reader who has doubts about whether the government had a deficit or surplus in 1998 need only check out the size of the national debt in 1997 and 1998. The United States Treasury Department maintains a web site on the internet that provides public debt figures updated on a daily basis.
The total debt at the end of 1997 was $5,369.7 billion ($5.37 trillion). By the end of 1998, the debt had risen to $5,478.7 billion ($5.48 trillion). How could the national debt rise by $109 billion if the government had a $69.2 billion surplus? It couldn’t. The United States Government had to borrow $30 billion to pay the on-budget deficit. In addition, since the Social Security Surplus was all invested in United States Treasury securities as required by law, the governments debt to the Social Security fund also went up.

Answer 3

Let me clear this up: Clinton did not pay off the national debt. that has only been done once, under Jackson (ever wonder why he's on a bill? That's why he's there and not Reagan. He did the opposite of Reagan in terms of the national debt)

Clinton Balanced the budget, then achieved a budget surplus. You can look that up. That means that he cut government spending enough that spending was less then income. Comprehende?

though it is worth noting that Clinton increased the naitonal debt at a much lower rate then Reagan, Bush I and Bush II....

Answer 4

First, you should be comparing the debt to GDP ratio to see if the debt has gone down in "real" terms, but not in "nominal" terms. This would be a more accurate measure of whether the U.S. debt burden grew or fell over a time period. Since the economy grew fairly well during the Clinton years, it is likely that the debt burden fell.

Second, the debt goes up because of interest owed. It is probable that, if your numbers are correct, the amount of debt that was paid off simply did not offset the annual interest payments of the huge debt that was inherited by Clinton government.

Answer 5

Your mistake is using the Internationally Accepted Accounting Principles. That is not how Washington keeps its books.

What Clinton paid down was not actual debt, but future liability. When he took office, that $4 billion was due over time. What he did was reduce what was due over that same time period. He got rid of interest payments that we would've had to pay had he not thrown more money at the principle. He did not reduce the actual debt, he reduced future liability, which is what we calculate as the deficit (vs. future revenue).

Today's deficit is not now due and owing. It will not be paid for several years, depending on the bonds sold. Some of that debt will have no payments made on it for five or ten years, accruing interest. If we paid on it now, before it is due, we will reduce our future liability.

The other way that Washington tracks deficits is by what we have agreed to spend money on in later years (Soc. Sec., education, welfare, military, etc). If we kill off a bunch of 50 year olds now, the deficit may still increase, but that will realize savings later when they don't collect Soc. Sec.. Those are the numbers that Clinton fudged to claim a reduction of the deficit. He has to use the same accounting procedures that were in place when he took office.

What I didn't make clear was, if you reduce future expenditures, you can pretend that they are earmarked for debt reduction today. The truth of the matter is, Congress will spend every penny that is available to them, and then some. So the savings would have been spent in future years building bridges to nowhere, etc, anyway. So there was no real savings. I agree with your point that Clinton didn't produce a surplus unless he got a balanced budget amendment passed, which Republicans killed.

Answer 6

I've basically answered this question twice... guh...

I don't know what he did with the surplus... if he applied it to the debt, that could be one of the reasons why it was so low from 98 to 00? maybe he was paying off a great deal of the interest, but not all... I don't really care...

he clearly had a surplus with the deficit... it's fact..

and EVERY PRESIDENT deals with deficits and debt... both terms... Bush uses both too... it's basic government ideas that you're blatantly ignoring trying to make a point?

does Bush add in the interest when he talks about the deficit? no... learn the difference between the two...

go take a class on interest... deficit and debt... oh and on the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan...

Answer 7

the excess never existed. It became a projected surplus based on the prediction that the dotcom bubble of the ninety's could proceed to grow on a similar unsustainable value perpetually. The bubble burst in 2000, in the previous Clinton left place of work and in the previous any surplus became found out. It never existed. Clinton basically balanced the funds via raiding the Social secure practices have faith fund to cook dinner the books and push the deficits down the line. Now we truthfully want the Social secure practices have faith fund and it somewhat is crammed with IOUs. reducing taxes would not spend funds. sales truthfully extra advantageous after the Bush tax cuts. you will desire to comprehend the version between tax rates and gross sales amassed. on occasion a decrease value generates extra gross sales via incentivizing employer and becoming the financial equipment. not taking funds isn't comparable to giving it away.

Answer 8

The first years of Clinton were actually great as taxes were low and more jobs happened. As soon as Clinton raised taxes the economy started sagging but still nowhere near 2008 levels.

We actually were in a slight recession in the late 90s but the media covers things up.

Answer 9

People seem to forget: the people pay and the government spends. If anyone pays down a debt, it's the people paying taxes, not a president. It's the government that runs up the debt.

Answer 10

You think that is bad, take a look at the debt now:

$8 616 191 658 581.16

Good luck repaying that! (your children and grandchildren are going to be paying it off too).