However, the total amount refunded to taxpayers was only $38 billion. Granted, Bush supported a tax refund where taxpayers received checks in 2001. So the $133.29 billion deficit in the year ending September 2001 was Clinton's. Keep in mind that President Bush took office in January 2001 and his first budget took effect Octofor the year ending Septem(FY2002). The growing deficits started in the year of the last Clinton budget, not in the first year of the Bush administration. And Clinton's last budget proposal for FY2001, which ended in September 2001, generated a $133.29 billion deficit. Yes, the deficit was almost eliminated in FY2000 (ending in September 2000 with a deficit of "only" $17.9 billion), but it never reached zero-let alone a positive surplus number. Considering the government's fiscal year ends on the last day of September each year, and considering Clinton's budget proposal in 1993 took effect in October 1993 and concluded September 1994 (FY1994), here's the national debt at the end of each year of Clinton Budgets:Īs can clearly be seen, in no year did the national debt go down, nor did Clinton leave President Bush with a surplus that Bush subsequently turned into a deficit. Treasury (see note about this link below) website where the national debt is updated daily and a history of the debt since January 1993 can be obtained. Verifying this is as simple as accessing the U.S. ![]() In fact, far from a $360 billion reduction in the national debt in FY1998-FY2000, there was an increase of $281 billion. There was never a surplus and the facts support that position. While not defending the increase of the federal debt under President Bush, it's curious to see Clinton's record promoted as having generated a surplus. In that same link, Clinton claimed that the national debt had been reduced by $360 billion in the last three years, presumably FY1998, FY1999, and FY2000-though, interestingly, $360 billion is not the sum of the alleged surpluses of the three years in question ($69B + $123B + $230B = $422B, not $360B). ![]() The claim is generally made that Clinton had a surplus of $69 billion in FY1998, $123 billion in FY1999 and $230 billion in FY2000. This is then used as an argument to further highlight the fiscal irresponsibility of the federal government under the Bush administration. Time and time again, anyone reading the mainstream news or reading articles on the Internet will read the claim that President Clinton not only balanced the budget, but had a surplus. However, it analyzes the debt to prove there wasn't a surplus under Clinton.įor those that want a more detailed explanation of why a claimed $236 billion surplus resulted in the national debt increasing by $18 billion, please read this follow-up article. This article is about surplus/deficit, not the debt. The government can have a surplus even if it has trillions in debt, but it cannot have a surplus if that debt increased every year.
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