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This is nonsense. There were budget surpluses at the end of the Clinton administration and even your article states that, "...the public debt went down in each of those four years." That is an excellent outcome for any President and the only time it happened recent history. Furthermore, Bush projected a $5.6 trillion surplus based on the trend at that point in time. So, I guess you're calling Bush a liar.

I understand you lost your shorts in the dotcom bubble, but how can you blame a president for out of control stock speculation. If he stepped in to regulate the stock market, you would've accused him of interfering with the free market.


Well, I have no problem calling Bush a liar when it is warranted, But projecting a surplus and having a surplus are two different things. Additionally, taking funds that are earmarked for a specific purpose (social security) and using it to pay down debt isn't really creating a surplus (look it up, Clinton did it).

That's the fun thing about statistics, if you slice them just right, you can make them say whatever you want. If you measure from 1995 to early 2000, the trajectory is glorious. But if you measure from 2000 to 2003, it is tragic. That's what happens when tax revenues dry up and spending stays at boom levels.

I did lose a lot of money in the dotcom implosion. I also made a bunch. Overall, I came out on the plus side. It's amazing that people are willing to give Clinton all kinds of credit for the economic situation in the 90s while not recognizing that, if he was responsible for what was perceived as great economic times, he is also responsible for the fallout. Now, I will admit that he doesn't get as much blame (or credit) as some might suggest. There was going to be a bull market anyway...cycles happen. But his monetary policy (and that of congress) along with the Fed (Greenspan, heavily influenced by Clinton) caused the amplitude of the cycle to become greatly exaggerated. Bush/Congress/Fed did the same thing with the housing/credit bubble. It was this meddling in the free market that caused the bubbles and subsequent implosions. Bubbles pop. They are not healthy, regardless of which party is in power.

I realize that you think that it is non-sense, but you haven't provided any evidence to dispute the evidence. There was no surplus. You can't have surplus if you still have debt. It's as simple as that. And again, using funds that are supposed to be protected, as social security is, to pay down debt, is just playing with a balance sheet and not even really reducing debt.

Do you honestly believe that Clinton/Congress/Fed had nothing to do with the out of control stock speculation?

If you absolve Clinton of the responsibility, why don't you absolve Bush from the housing/credit bubble? (which was really engineered by a bunch of democrats with the fair housing act, with the wimplike acquiescence of Bush).

Did I mention that there hasn't been a free market in the U.S. in 70 years? It is the meddling in the markets that caused all of this. I won't complain when they stop. And yes, there will be some economic pain when it happens. Stepping in to regulate the stock market wasn't what was needed. What we needed was for Clinton/Congress/Fed to stop providing artificial stimulants to the market.

We people are prone to panic during extremes of cyclical events. Weather cycles go to one end or the other and we are panicking about the next ice age or global warming. And we take dramatic steps that will not change things one way or the other, except to harm our economy. Or we will be in a negative economic cycle and we panic because it will never get better, so we enact crazy economic policies to offset the down cycle and end up over steering and exaggerating the cycles.