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Exclusive: Jobs 'Saved or Created' in Congressional Districts That Don't Exist

donc said:
Nah, just pointing out the hypocrisy of all the bitching about a “Democrat President”, coming in and cleaning up the mess left by eight years of …cough,cough, a so called “Republican President” mess, that seems to be the way it is, as usual. After all, it took Clinton eight years to clean the mess of 12 years of Reagan, Bush #1. :2wave:
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So what are you claiming Clinton cleaned up?
 
Of course we have new congressional districts. We have 7 new states. Congrats to Obama for expanding our borders! :mrgreen:
 
Strucky said:
So what are you claiming Clinton cleaned up?
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When President Clinton took office the deficit was $290.4 billion.

When President Clinton left office the surplus was $236.4 billion.
 
donc said:
The eight year term that started on January 20th, 2009. Do you really think the team of Palin and Beck will beat him in three years? :mrgreen:

<Sarah Palin has suggested Fox News firebrand Glenn Beck could be someone she'd consider as a running mate if she makes a bid for the White House in two years.>

The Canadian Press: Palin floats possibility of joining forces with Fox News firebrand Beck
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I know if Obama keeps up his socialist agenda he will be a 4 year president
 
donc said:
When President Clinton took office the deficit was $290.4 billion.

When President Clinton left office the surplus was $236.4 billion.
Click to expand...

WikiAnswers - How much surplus did the US have when Clinton left office


Clinton ran deficits throught all 8 years of his term, and one can go to the US Treasury Department and looking through the history of the total outstanding debt throught Clintons term. (Debt to the Penny (Daily History Search Application))

Every year Clinton was in office, the total national debt continued to climb.

How Clinton managed to claim a surplus was that while the general operating budgets ran deficits but Clinton borrowed from numerous off budget funds to make the on budget fund a surplus.

For example, in 2000, Clinton claimed a $230B surplus, but Clinton borrowed
$152.3B from Social Security
$30.9B from Civil Service Retirement Fund
$18.5B from Federal Supplementary Medical insurance Trust Fund
$15.0B from Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund
$9.0B from the Federal Unemployment Trust Fund
$8.2B from Military Retirement Fund
$3.8B from Transportation Trust Funds
$1.8B from Employee Life Insurance & Retirement fund
$7.0B from others

Total borrowed from off budget funds $246.5B, meaning that his $230B surplus is actually a $16.5B deficit.
($246.5B borrowed - $230B claimed surplus = $16.5B actual deficit).

If there is ever a true surplus, then the national debt will go down.

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/NPGateway

Date Debt Held by the Public Intragovernmental Holdings Total Public Debt Outstanding
01/04/1993 Not Available Not Available 4,167,872,986,583.67
01/05/1993 Not Available Not Available 4,169,232,407,244.75
01/06/1993 Not Available Not Available 4,171,132,340,862.78
01/07/1993 Not Available Not Available 4,177,129,381,121.13

12/26/2000 Not Available Not Available 5,661,579,846,114.32
12/27/2000 Not Available Not Available 5,663,706,592,936.09
12/28/2000 Not Available Not Available 5,665,928,609,714.47
12/29/2000 Not Available Not Available 5,662,216,013,697.37
01/02/2001 Not Available Not Available 5,728,739,508,558.96
01/03/2001 Not Available Not Available 5,723,237,439,563.59
01/04/2001 Not Available Not Available 5,719,452,925,490.54
01/05/2001 Not Available Not Available 5,722,338,254,319.31
01/09/2001 Not Available Not Available 5,725,066,298,944.04
01/10/2001 Not Available Not Available 5,724,315,917,828.49
01/11/2001 Not Available Not Available 5,734,110,648,665.41
01/12/2001 Not Available Not Available 5,735,197,779,458.19
01/16/2001 Not Available Not Available 5,711,790,291,567.40
01/17/2001 Not Available Not Available 5,718,517,343,351.92
01/18/2001 Not Available Not Available 5,725,695,166,475.90
01/19/2001 Not Available Not Available 5,727,776,738,304.64



Sorry but the surplus was on paper only.
 
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ptif219 said:
I know if Obama keeps up his socialist agenda he will be a 4 year president
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Hhmm…I sure didn’t know that socialist liked giving tax cuts like this” $282 billion" in tax cuts over two years. :shock:

Using a favorite Fox news standby “Some Would Say” that giving cuts like that, to the Middle-Class is the biggest middle class Tax Cut In History. Sure don’t sound like socialism to this tired old driver.
 
ptif219 said:
WikiAnswers - How much surplus did the US have when Clinton left office


Clinton ran deficits throught all 8 years of his term, and one can go to the US Treasury Department and looking through the history of the total outstanding debt throught Clintons term. (Debt to the Penny (Daily History Search Application))

Every year Clinton was in office, the total national debt continued to climb.

How Clinton managed to claim a surplus was that while the general operating budgets ran deficits but Clinton borrowed from numerous off budget funds to make the on budget fund a surplus.

For example, in 2000, Clinton claimed a $230B surplus, but Clinton borrowed
$152.3B from Social Security
$30.9B from Civil Service Retirement Fund
$18.5B from Federal Supplementary Medical insurance Trust Fund
$15.0B from Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund
$9.0B from the Federal Unemployment Trust Fund
$8.2B from Military Retirement Fund
$3.8B from Transportation Trust Funds
$1.8B from Employee Life Insurance & Retirement fund
$7.0B from others

Total borrowed from off budget funds $246.5B, meaning that his $230B surplus is actually a $16.5B deficit.
($246.5B borrowed - $230B claimed surplus = $16.5B actual deficit).

If there is ever a true surplus, then the national debt will go down.


Sorry but the surplus was on paper only.
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Yawn, I,ll match you wiki with this.:roll:

deficit.jpg



Economic Performance of Presidential Administrations
 
wow, just look at that green bar

LOL!
 
donc said:
Hhmm…I sure didn’t know that socialist liked giving tax cuts like this” $282 billion" in tax cuts over two years. :shock:

Using a favorite Fox news standby “Some Would Say” that giving cuts like that, to the Middle-Class is the biggest middle class Tax Cut In History. Sure don’t sound like socialism to this tired old driver.
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Tax Cuts
JC-LOL.gif
 
donc said:
When President Clinton took office the deficit was $290.4 billion.

When President Clinton left office the surplus was $236.4 billion.
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The Myth of the Clinton Surplus

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's curious to see Clinton's record promoted as having generated a surplus. It never happened. There was never a surplus and the 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.

Verifying this is as simple as accessing the U.S. 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. 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:



FY 1993 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

As 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. 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. 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 only $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.

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

So why do they say 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:

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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 discrepancy.

When it is claimed that Clinton paid down the national debt, that is 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 (mostly Social Security).

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Theres tons more to read in the link
 
The Myth of the Clinton Surplus, Part II (Follow up article)

Ever since I wrote an article that demonstrated that President Clinton never had a surplus, people have been skeptical. After all, Clinton's alleged surpluses have been accepted by the media and repeated so much that it's taken as gospel truth.

The claim is made that in Fiscal Year 2000, President Clinton ran a budget surplus of $236 billion. My previous article demonstrates that far from a surplus, the government had to increase the national debt by $18 billion. How can you claim a surplus when you have to borrow more money?

Indeed, citizens that hear about the Clinton "surplus" but also know the national debt never went down may legitimately ask, "How can the national debt increase even when the government supposedly has a surplus?" This article will provide a detailed explanation of how Clinton claimed a surplus even when the government borrowed $18 billion more the same year.

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How the National Debt Is Calculated

The national debt obviously isn't calculated the same way we would think. If there's a $236 billion surplus then most people would think the national debt would go down by $236 billion. Instead it went up by $18 billion. This is the difference that must be explained.

Public Debt is calculated by taking the previous year's public debt and adding the total unified budget deficit (or subtracting the surplus), and then adding any "other means of financing."

Intragovernmental Debt is calculated by taking any trust fund surpluses and adding it to the previous year's intragovernmental debt.

Total National Debt is calculated by adding the public debt to the intragovernmental debt. As a result, the national debt can increase even when the public debt decreases if the intragovernmental debt increases by a larger amount.

Why? When a trust fund (such as social security) takes in more money than it pays out in benefits, it takes the extra money and "invests" it in government bonds. Essentially social security says "We received $100 billion in social security contributions but only paid out $80 billion in benefits, so we take the extra $20 billion and buy U.S. government bonds." Social security doesn't keep the extra cash but rather loans it to the U.S. government and, in return, it gets a U.S. government bond. That means the U.S. government can immediately spend that $20 billion on normal government operations but owes that $20 billion to Social Security. Hence one part of the government (the U.S. Federal Government general fund) owes $20 billion to another part of the government (Social Security). That is intragovernmental debt.

Whenever a trust fund has a surplus intragovernmental debt will increase because the surplus money is automatically loaned to the federal government's general fund. That money is then used by the federal government for its normal operations. The fact that a trust fund has a surplus simply means the federal government doesn't need to borrow as much money directly from the public since it's receiving extra money from the trust funds. It's still borrowing money--just from a trust fund rather than the public.

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Isn't That a Surplus?

No, that's not a surplus.

If in a given year you earn $30,000 and a friend loans you $5,000, and you spend $32,000, is that a surplus? While you can claim "I received $35,000 and only spent $32,000, thus I have a surplus," that's a pretty weak argument when you know that $2,000 of the money you spent was actually borrowed and has to be paid back later. That's pretty much what happened in 2000.

An article at Factcheck is often used to respond to my original article. The article cites Congressional Budget Office (CBO) numbers that cite an on-budget surplus of $87.2 billion and an off-budget (Social Security) surplus of $149.8 billion. The Factcheck article says: "But even if we remove Social Security from the equation, there was a surplus of $1.9 billion in fiscal 1999 and $86.4 billion in fiscal 2000."

The above Factcheck statement acknowledges the fact that Social Security trust fund surpluses really don't have anything to do with the president's budget, nor can they really be considered part of a surplus since they'll have to be paid back to Social Security later. So they argue that even if you don't count the $149.8 billion Social Security surplus, President Clinton was still responsible for an "on-budget" surplus of $86.4 billion

What Factcheck does not mention, however, is that while Social Security is the only off-budget trust fund, it's not the only trust fund. Just as surpluses caused by Social Security should not be considered a real surplus caused by a president's budget, nor should surpluses caused by other trust funds be considered. The following table shows the major trust funds that contributed to surpluses in 2000. These numbers come from Table 6 Schedule D of the MTS for September 2000 . That table contains a complete list of all the trust funds and government accounts that contributed to the "surplus" due to their excess funds.

TRUST FUND SURPLUSES IN 2000

Social Security $152.3 billion
Civil Service Retirement Fund $30.9 billion
Federal supplementary medical insurance Trust fund $18.5 billion
Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund $15.0 billion
Unemployment Trust Fund $9.0 billion
Military Retirement Fund $8.2 billion
Transportation Trust Funds $3.8 billion
Employee lice insurance & retirement $1.8 billion
Other $7.0 billion
TOTAL $246.5 billion

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Tons more in the link
 
I'm thinking the Clinton surplus myth needs it's own thread.
 
ptif219 said:
Read the WIKI and see how Clinton claimed a surplus while the debt increased one and a half trillion.
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When Clinton entered office in 1993 the deficit was 255.1 billion.In 2000,his last year of office, the budget had a surplus of 236.4 billion. That’s a fact, now the wiggle room comes into play.

< The trust fund is part of the total federal debt, which went up from 1998 at 5.4787 trillion to 5.6061 trillion and to 5.629 trillion in 2000. >

I’m not going to cut and paste a bunch is s*** and waste everyone time trying to decipher something (when I have a hard time with my log book) but a few snips and a link might get my idea across.

I believe that the surplus is/was what is called a projected surplus, the first time since 1969 that we were not increasing the national debt. That happened the last two years of Clinton’s term. Here have a peek. Its not a Weki but it will do in a pinch.

http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/02statab/fedgov.pdf
 
donc said:
I’m not going to cut and paste a bunch is s*** and waste everyone time trying to decipher something (when I have a hard time with my log book.
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:rofl I'm sorry if it's too confusing for you,I'll rewrite it in crayon and draw some pictures.
 
donc said:
When Clinton entered office in 1993 the deficit was 255.1 billion.In 2000,his last year of office, the budget had a surplus of 236.4 billion. That’s a fact, now the wiggle room comes into play.

< The trust fund is part of the total federal debt, which went up from 1998 at 5.4787 trillion to 5.6061 trillion and to 5.629 trillion in 2000. >

I’m not going to cut and paste a bunch is s*** and waste everyone time trying to decipher something (when I have a hard time with my log book) but a few snips and a link might get my idea across.

I believe that the surplus is/was what is called a projected surplus, the first time since 1969 that we were not increasing the national debt. That happened the last two years of Clinton’s term. Here have a peek. Its not a Weki but it will do in a pinch.

http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/02statab/fedgov.pdf
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You have been proven wrong
 
So there was really no surplus in the final two years of Clinton's presidency? Do explain!
 
donc said:
Yes and the Republicans voted against the biggest tax cut in history.So sad isn't it? :shock:
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Better than voting for the biggest tax hikes in history.
 
Goldenboy219 said:
So there was really no surplus in the final two years of Clinton's presidency? Do explain!
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Go through the links,it explains everything in great detail.
 
donc said:
When Clinton entered office in 1993 the deficit was 255.1 billion.In 2000,his last year of office, the budget had a surplus of 236.4 billion. That’s a fact, now the wiggle room comes into play.

< The trust fund is part of the total federal debt, which went up from 1998 at 5.4787 trillion to 5.6061 trillion and to 5.629 trillion in 2000. >

I’m not going to cut and paste a bunch is s*** and waste everyone time trying to decipher something (when I have a hard time with my log book) but a few snips and a link might get my idea across.

I believe that the surplus is/was what is called a projected surplus, the first time since 1969 that we were not increasing the national debt. That happened the last two years of Clinton’s term. Here have a peek. Its not a Weki but it will do in a pinch.

http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/02statab/fedgov.pdf
Click to expand...


2/26/2000 Not Available Not Available 5,661,579,846,114.32
12/27/2000 Not Available Not Available 5,663,706,592,936.09
12/28/2000 Not Available Not Available 5,665,928,609,714.47
12/29/2000 Not Available Not Available 5,662,216,013,697.37
01/02/2001 Not Available Not Available 5,728,739,508,558.96
01/03/2001 Not Available Not Available 5,723,237,439,563.59
01/04/2001 Not Available Not Available 5,719,452,925,490.54
01/05/2001 Not Available Not Available 5,722,338,254,319.31
01/09/2001 Not Available Not Available 5,725,066,298,944.04
01/10/2001 Not Available Not Available 5,724,315,917,828.49
01/11/2001 Not Available Not Available 5,734,110,648,665.41
01/12/2001 Not Available Not Available 5,735,197,779,458.19
01/16/2001 Not Available Not Available 5,711,790,291,567.40
01/17/2001 Not Available Not Available 5,718,517,343,351.92
01/18/2001 Not Available Not Available 5,725,695,166,475.90
01/19/2001 Not Available Not Available 5,727,776,738,304.64


Yes it was a surplus on paper only. Look here the last year of Clinton the debt went up 66 Billion
 
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