When Bush says he reduced the deficit, does he forget there was no deficit when he took office?

Question

And the National Debt was half what it is now.

Answer 1

Alcoholics do have problems with reality. They tend to make up their own reality, which is what he has been doing for the past 7 years.

Answer 2

He inherited an economy in recession, followed by the economic impact of 9/11, estimated to have cost the economy a staggering $1+ trillion.

No president could have NOT had a deficit in those circumstances.

As for the Clinton "surpluses", if we had so much surplus money, how come the national debt increased by 1/3 under Clinton? Riddle me that!

Answer 3

There was a deficit when he took office. The national debt is a fudged number that all administrations report. If you take out Social Security the the national debt is $5 trillion. Add it back and it is $9 trillion. Add in all of the social programs and it is $59.6 trillion!

In 2005 Bush lowered the deficit substantially as a result of his tax cuts. The Treasury enjoyed stronger tax revenues.

The problem we have now with Bush is that he is doing what is called deficit spending. He is spending more than the tax revenues are bringing in. That creates the deficit. The national debt only moves when the government borrows not when it spends.

The Clinton administration passed the largest tax hike in history which stalled the economy and I was personally affect by his HUGE military cuts.

During the Bush (41) Administration, the S&L bailout made the budget deficit much greater, requiring $57.9 billion in FY 1990 and $66.2 billion in FY 199 1. But in FY 1993, before Clinton's economic policies were enacted, the federal government actually began to make a profit of $28 billion from selling assets. In FY 1996, the deposit insurance funds will bring in $13.5 billion to make the deficit appear even smaller. The Clinton Administration has enjoyed a large windfall. Defense spending cuts and the distorting effects of deposit insurance account for 36 percent of the change in the deficit between FY 1992 and FY 1996. While the Administration claims credit for deficit reduction, its domestic spending has surged 23 percent since FY 1992, from $857.1 billion in FY 1992 to $1,058.4 billion in FY 1996.

Clinton's Tax Increase Slows Revenue Growth

Total Increase Revenue from 1993 Revenue from In Revenues Tax Increase Economic Growth (billions) (billions) (billions) FY 1994 $104.2 $26.4 $77.8

FY 1995 $ 97.5 $43.5 $54.0

FY 1996 $ 71.6 $51.5 $20.1

According to the Congressional Budget Office, tax revenues from the Clinton 1993 tax hike in- creased from $26.4 billion to $51.5 billion between FY 1994 and FY 1996.2 But the total increase in tax revenues from all sources decreased from $104.2 billion to $71.6 billion. Most of the drop in the deficit from new revenues occurred before the new 1993 tax increases could be collected. The tax data suggest that Clinton's economic policies actually may have SNAPPED the economic recovery and produced a deficit larger than it otherwise could have been.

Answer 4

Nope, he hasn't. But if you took an economics class you'd realize that the government goes into debt every time there is a recession. When Bush took office he inherited Clinton's recession, the recession created personally by Clinton when he stuck his..um, finger..in the tech bubble. Remember that? I do. Not saying that the tech bubble wouldn't have burst on its own accord, but Clinton, in going after Microsoft, personally popped the thing. I remember that night when he came on TV and tried to call everyone's fears after the Dow dropped 400 points. I remember the people that lost nearly all of their retirement, or at least the majority of it because of all the 401Ks tied to technology. And it took a tax cut to pull us out of that recession. Did you think Bush pushed that tax cut simply because it'd be peachy? No, he did it because the nation was in the pits of a recession. When the nation is in recession, people are out of work, revenues are down and as a result, tax revenue is WAY down. You can't pay for government when folks are out of work and yet government continues to spend. See how that works?

Good!

Now, once the tax cut took affect and the recession was reversed, revenues began to increase with the millions of new jobs created, the salaries that were earned and the taxes paid. Woohoo!

Hope that helps. In the future, you might try not to put such a revision on history. It won't help your credibility.

Answer 5

Ok so he says he reduced the deficit? Then why are we three trillion times three in debt, and sold off to every other country in the world?

Answer 6

Yeah, I think he forgot. Bush and his cronies also started a war, immigration is a huge issue. He told our senior citizens that the new medicaid would be better for them, and now its worse. How many jobs did he send to other countries? The list goes on and on, maybe he has some kind of memory problem.

Answer 7

Thanks for asking.

No, he didn't forget.

Which leaves us three possibilities:
1. He's lying.
probability 100%--he has never told the sufficient truth about on thing since he was fraudulently elected.

2. He genuinely doesn't know.
probability--100%--as a pseudo-theocrat without any reality except public interest versions is writers make up, he doesn't know anything as a science.

3. He doesn't care what true--it's postmodernism, replacing reality with a pragmatic set of fantasies to hide another failure.
probability--100%, since that's the exclusive way in which neocons try to hide their absurd, nasty and inevitable ineptitude.

Bottom Line:
He created the deficit; he more than doubled the debt; and he wants us, we the voters, to ignore than devastating fact.

Happy holidays!
I hope you have enough spending money to ignore the reality-based consequences of his party's totalitarian follies.

Answer 8

Don't kid yourself. Clinton eliminated the deficit but drastically reducing military spending. I am sure Bush could do the same by eliminating social programs.

Answer 9

Their all liars and need to be fired yesterday. Get rid of all the politicians that have been around more than 2 years and start with a clean slate!!

Answer 10

I thought deficit and debt were rather closely intertwined.