If Clinton was not responsible for balancing the budget, and he did, as cons claim, "kick and scream like

Question

a baby" about it, why didn't he veto Congress's attempts to balance the budget?

Please provide SPECIFIC examples, or don't bother answering the question.

Answer 1

Wow. Your question has sure generated some thought-provoking responses from the conservative lot on Y!A today. No violations of TOS, huh?

Answer 2

The actual budget balancing and surplus looked great when they released the information, but was a complete myth. The federal government borrowed against social security's surplus to do the actual balancing act.

If you don't believe me, that is fine. Look it up for yourself and not trust others. Here is the link to the Treasury's historical records area. Look up the receipts (revenues) and outlays (expenditures) and you will see the surplus. Then look at what makes up the receipts and you will see "Social Insurance" (another name for Social Security) totalled in with it. Once you remove those figures from the receipts and outlays, you will see beyond a shadow of a doubt that the budget was not balanced.

You will also hear of this when they discuss social security reform. The SS trust will go bankrupt in the near future (around 2012-2015) and at which time the federal government will repay the loan. This of course creates an even bigger problem for who ever is in office at that time, since they will have even less money to budget with.

Answer 3

You seem not to know or understand that Mr Clintons 'Balanced Budget Amendment was not Mr Clintons at all, but rather Newt Gingrich and his 19994 Congress that draughted and pushed through that bill (Dick Armey was the architect)- over the protests of the Dem minority.
Secondly, Clinton never 'balanced' anything - we switched the debt from short term to long term notes, thus giving us a lower interest payment on the debt;
this resulted in a theoretical surplus which was then applied to (at that time) current spending. So in theory, the deficit would be negated and we would have a ]balanced' annual budget.
The key word here is THEORY.
It was a PROJECTED surplus which (convieniently enough would not have tangible results until 2010...10 years after Clinton was out of office.)
I commend Clinton for (finally ) signing the Gingritch/Armey Balanced Budget Amendment, but it never ACTUALLY resulted in the reduction of debt, it was simply a model - and a good one - for what are referred to as 'out years'.
The actual deficit NEVER went down under Clinton - look at any US Budget readily available on Google and see for yourself.

Answer 4

You know, I've been waiting for someone to comment upon this....

How long did it take Bush to put the US back into monstrous debt, after Clinton and the Democrats balanced the budget? And how come no one is screaming that from the highest rooftops? I liken it to someone running a company at a huge profit, with record sales and a high level of employee satisfaction. And then a new CEO comes in and runs the company into the ground.

Answer 5

From The Heritage Foundation, Budget Report 1993:

The Clinton plan also contains a startling number of accounting tricks and phony assumptions to generate savings. The budget magically assumes $1 billion of savings through better management of Veterans Administration hospitals. "Other administrative savings" supposedly will generate $7.7 billion of deficit reduction, while "Streamlining Government" allegedly will reduce spending by $7.9 billion. The Administration proposes to save $11.5 billion by exchanging longer-term government debt for shorter-term debt. If, however, interest rates happen to rise -- and they are now at twenty-year lows -- this proposal will increase spending. Improved IRS tax compliance efforts (needed to guarantee more of what the President euphemistically calls "contributions") are somehow assumed to raise almost $1 billion.

These gimmicks are joined by proposals which save money, but only by pushing the spending into future years.

Answer 6

The Republican congress and the Democratic White House of the 1990s was a good combination. The reverse situation we have today doesn't seem to be working out as well, at least not yet.
It takes the right mix of people in the government to achieve fiscal responsiblity. I'm afraid we just don't have that as yet.

Answer 7

No need to give specifics. His balanced budget was in the future. But if you think it is okay to rape the military where they have to take a perfectly good aircraft and strip it to keep other planes flying, then there is no way of changing your mind.

I think it is safe to say he had to use Social Security to balance his budget as well. Now that is smart.

Answer 8

Clinton was a great fiscal Democrat, that gave us our first balanced budget since the days of Eisenhower.

Answer 9

Watch as bush "balances the budget"...and wonder why cons aren't outraged.

Answer 10

Oh my. Present some facts and logical arguments and the cons just totally breakdown.