Comments on: McCain Transforms Campaign As Dems Battle

Washington Post: GOP Candidate Developing Strategies, Tactics For General Election Showdown

[iceman_1960]

"Did you see the look that came over McCain"s face when John Kerry, sitting next to him on Meet the Nation..."
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This is a great new program.

They combined "Meet the Press" with "Face the Nation" to create it.

It is brought to you courtesy of a grant from the Japanese Paratroopers" Benevolent Asscociation.

[iceman_1960]

"The archaeologists should ask McCain when Stonehenge was built. He"s a wise old guy."
- Posted by thgdriver at 02:10 PM : Apr 01, 2008
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That would be downright mean. John McCain is still trying to remember what he had for breakfast.

Did you see the look that came over McCain"s face when John Kerry, sitting next to him on Meet the Nation, said "According to Bush we have 36 allies in Iraq. I"lll lay odds John McCain can"t name them."

But a big relief appeared on his face when Kerry added that he couldn"t either.

[mudrose-2009]

In short, Clinton did not give us a budget surplus, and the baby boomers should be really pissed off at the government for dipping into their Social Security which is almost bankrupt.

Icey, watch those Japanese Paratroopers. You don''t want them falling on your 2nd grade head.

[thgdriver]

The archaeologists should ask McCain when Stonehenge was built. He''s a wise old guy.

[iceman_1960]

mudrose proves the truth of a prior post of mine:

"The only reply of the Right is to invoke their Eleventh and Twelvth Commandments:

XI: Thou shalt attribute all bad things that happen under a Democratic President like Jimmy Carter, to his own policies.

XII: Thou shalt attribute all good things that happen under a Democratic President like Bill Clinton, to other factors and circumstances he had nothing to do with."

[mudrose-2009]

A balanced budget or a budget surplus is a great thing, but it''s only relevant if the budget surplus turns into a real surplus at the end of the fiscal year. In Clinton''s case, it never did.

The reality of the national debt

The only debt that matters is the total national debt. And the national debt went up every single year under Clinton. Had Clinton really had a surplus the national debt would have gone down. It didn''t go down precisely because Clinton had a deficit every single year. The U.S. Treasury''s historical record of
the national debt verifies this.

[mudrose-2009]

An overall "downsizing" of government and a virtual end to the arms race have contributed to the surplus, but the vast majority is coming from excess Social Security taxes being paid by the workforce in an attempt to keep Social Security benefit checks coming once the "baby-boomers" start to retire.
Of the $142 billion surplus projected by the end of 2000, $137 billion will come from excess Social Security taxes.
When these unified budget numbers are separated into Social Security and non-Social Security components, however, it becomes evident that all of the projected surplus throughout this period is attributable to Social Security. The remainder of the budget will remain in deficit throughout the next decade.

[sgtrds]

SgtRDS didn"t call you a liar. He called you "a big time lair."

lair: British Dialect. mud; mire.
%u2013verb (used without object) 2. Scot. to sink or stick in mud or mire.

- Dictionary.com

Your name IS mudrose, isn"t it ?

Posted by Iceman_1960 at 01:51 PM : Apr 01, 2008


If there was a lying Olympics mudrose would make the team, but the medals would go to Bush, Cheney and Rove.

[iceman_1960]

Bush"s own website disputes your claims, mudrose.

"During the administration of William Jefferson Clinton, the U.S. enjoyed more peace and economic well being than at any time in its history. He was the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second term. He could point to the lowest unemployment rate in modern times, the lowest inflation in 30 years, the highest home ownership in the country''s history, dropping crime rates in many places, and reduced welfare rolls. He proposed the first balanced budget in decades and achieved a budget surplus. As part of a plan to celebrate the millennium in 2000, Clinton called for a great national initiative to end racial discrimination...

[Despite Monica-gate] he continued to have unprecedented popular approval ratings for his job as president.

In the world, he successfully dispatched peace keeping forces to war-torn Bosnia and bombed Iraq when Saddam Hussein stopped United Nations inspections for evidence of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. He became a global proponent for an expanded NATO, more open international trade, and a worldwide campaign against drug trafficking. He drew huge crowds when he traveled through South America, Europe, Russia, Africa, and China, advocating U.S. style freedom."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/bc42.html

[mudrose-2009]

Interestingly, this most likely was not even a conscious decision by Clinton. The Social Security Administration is legally required to take all its surpluses and buy U.S. Government securities, and the U.S. Government readily sells those securities--which automatically and immediately becomes intergovernmental holdings. The economy was doing well due to the dot-com bubble and people were earning a lot of money and paying a lot into Social Security. Since Social Security had more money coming in than it had to pay in benefits to retired persons, all that extra money was immediately used to buy U.S. Government securities. The government was still running deficits, but since there was so much money coming from excess Social Security contributions there was no need to borrow more money directly from the public. As such, the public debt went down while intergovernmental holdings continued to skyrocket.

The net effect was that the national debt most definitely did not get paid down because we did not have a surplus. The government just covered its deficit by borrowing money from Social Security rather than the public .

[mudrose-2009]

Part V

Notice that while the public debt went down in each of those four years, the intergovernmental holdings went up each year by a far greater amount--and, in turn, the total national debt (which is public debt + intergovernmental holdings) went up. Therein lies the lie.

When Clinton (and others) said that he had paid down the national debt, that was patently false--as can be seen, the national debt went up every single year. What Clinton did do was pay down the public debt--notice that the claimed surplus is relatively close to the decrease in the public debt for those years. But he paid down the public debt by borrowing far more money in the form of intergovernmental holdings.

[mudrose-2009]

Part V

Letxa.com The myth of the Clinton surplus for tables

[mudrose-2009]

Part IV

Clinton clearly did not achieve a surplus and he didn''t leave President Bush with a surplus.

So why do they said he had a surplus?

As is usually the case in claims such as this, it has to do with Washington doublespeak and political smoke and mirrors.

Understanding what happened requires understanding two concepts of what makes up the national debt. The national debt is made up of public debt and intergovernmental holdings. The public debt is debt held by the public, normally including things such as treasury bills, savings bonds, and other instruments the public can purchase from the government. Intergovernmental holdings, on the other hand, is when the government borrows money from itself--mostly borrowing money from social security.

Looking at the makeup of the national debt and the claimed surpluses for the last 4 Clinton fiscal years, we have the following table:

[mudrose-2009]

Part III

As can clearly be seen, in no year did the national debt go down, nor did Clinton leave President Bush with a budget surplus that Bush subsequently turned into a deficit. Yes, the budget was almost balanced in FY2000 (ending in September 2000 with a deficit of "only" $17.9 billion), but it never reached zero--let alone a positive number. And Clinton''s last budget proposal for FY2001, which ended in September 2001, generated a $133.29 billion deficit. The growing deficits started in the year of the last Clinton budget, not in the first year of the Bush administration.

Keep in mind that President Bush took office in January 2001 and his first budget took effect October 1, 2001 for the year ending September 30, 2002 (FY2002). So the $133.29 billion deficit in the year ending September 2001 was Clinton''s. Granted, Bush supported a tax refund where taxpayers received checks in 2001. However, the total amount refunded to taxpayers was $38 billion . So even if we assume that $38 billion of the FY2001 deficit was due to Bush''s tax refunds which were not part of Clinton''s last budget, that still means that Clinton''s last budget produced a deficit of 133.29 - 38 = $95.29 billion.

[mudrose-2009]

Verifying this is as simple as accessing the U.S. Treasury website where the national debt is updated daily and a history of the debt since January 1993 can be obtained. 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:


Fiscal
Year Year
Ending National Debt Deficit
FY1993 09/30/1993 $4.411488 trillion
FY1994 09/30/1994 $4.692749 trillion $281.26 billion
FY1995 09/29/1995 $4.973982 trillion $281.23 billion
FY1996 09/30/1996 $5.224810 trillion $250.83 billion
FY1997 09/30/1997 $5.413146 trillion $188.34 billion
FY1998 09/30/1998 $5.526193 trillion $113.05 billion
FY1999 09/30/1999 $5.656270 trillion $130.08 billion
FY2000 09/29/2000 $5.674178 trillion $17.91 billion
FY2001 09/28/2001 $5.807463 trillion $133.29 billion

[mudrose-2009]

Part I

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. This is then used as an argument to further highlight the fiscal irresponsibility of the federal government under the Bush administration.

The claim is generally made that Clinton had a surplus of $69 billion in FY1998, $123 billion in FY1999 and $230 billion in FY2000 . 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).

While not defending the increase of the federal debt under President Bush, it is aggravating seeing Clinton''s record promoted as having generated a surplus. It never happened. There was never a surplus and the cold hard facts support that position. In fact, far from a $360 billion reduction in the national debt in FY1998-FY2000, there was an increase of $281 billion.

[iceman_1960]

"I"m not lying and you know it. When you can"t defend your posture, you Dimnowit resort to calling others liars. It"s an old party trick on the left."
- Posted by mudrose at 01:45 PM : Apr 01, 2008
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SgtRDS didn"t call you a liar. He called you "a big time lair."

lair: British Dialect. mud; mire.
%u2013verb (used without object) 2. Scot. to sink or stick in mud or mire.

- Dictionary.com

Your name IS mudrose, isn"t it ?

[iceman_1960]

More on the brilliant financier Donald Regan:

"Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts and of Irish Catholic origins, Don Regan earned his bachelor"s degree in English from Harvard University in 1940 and attended Harvard Law School before dropping out to join the United States Marine Corps at the outset of World War II. He reached the rank of lieutenant colonel while serving in the Pacific theater, and was involved in five major campaigns including Guadalcanal and Okinawa. During his time at Harvard, Regan joined the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity.

After the War, he joined Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. in 1946, as an account executive trainee, working up through the ranks, eventually taking over as Merrill Lynch''s chairman and CEO in 1971, the year the company went public. He held those positions until 1980.

Regan was one of the original directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation and was vice chairman of the New York Stock Exchange from 1973 to 1975."

Wikipedia

[mudrose-2009]

RE: Post by mudrose at 01:23 PM : Apr 01, 2008
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This fellow is dishonest.

Posted by Iceman_1960 at 01:27 PM : Apr 01, 2008

mudrose is a big time lair and has been since he started spreading his cr*ap around in here. He has even less credibility then Karl Rove.

Posted by SgtRDS

I''m not lying and you know it. When you can''t defend your posture, you Dimnowit resort to calling others liars. It''s an old party trick on the left.

[iceman_1960]

"Clintoid was the benefactor of Regan/Bush."
- Posted by mudrose at 01:23 PM : Apr 01, 2008
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There"s a name from the past.

As mudrose has just acknowledged, the late Donald Regan, Treasury Secretary from 1985-1987, was the real "power behind the throne" during the administration of the amiable doofus Ronald Reagan.

"Reaganomics" should in reality be called "Reganomics".

And the shadowy monied interests of the "Green Zone" are lining up to put another amiable doofus in the White House again, to keep their little festivities going.



("Regan was also the name of the Linda Blair character in "The Exorcist" -- maybe that"s who mudrose was referring to...)




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