"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message
m...

There was NO surplus under Clinton.

Sadly true.
There was, but it was largely accounting. The extra money brought in by
the Social Security "Surplus" was counted as revenue. This was despite
the fact that the only place, by law, it could go was into Treasury
Securities. So, the current accounts surplus was largely related to
taking a long-term liability (those SS-surplus Treasuries) and counting
it as a short-term asset. When you back those out, you are again in
deficit.

Since the same accounting practices are still in place today, technically
there was indeed a surplus at that time.

It's just that the issue has been turned into a matter of semantics by the
right wing in attempt to deflect the fact that Government debt was indeed at
a historical low point when Bush took over.

In fairness to Mr. C, this wasn't anything he cooked up, that
bookkeeping system had been the same since the 80s. Also, the surplus
topped out and was back into deficit even with the creative bookkeeping
by before GW's first budget.