U.S.-NATO Missiles/Bombs on Syria within 15 to 25 days . . .

[star seed 7]

Didn't bill bomb some whites too?  #billsnotaracist

[sonofdaxjones]

During Clinton's 2nd term the National Debt increased 401 Billion (105th and 106th Congress).   That was down from the $1.018 Trillion dollar increase in the national debt from his first term.

The 105th Congress was controlled by Republicans.  The 106th Congress was controlled by Republicans and the 104th Congress was controlled by Republicans.

The National Debt increased every year that Clinton was in office.   The smallest increase in the National Debt was Federal FY 2000, where the national Debt "only" increased $17.91 Billion.   FY 2000 being the outlier, every other year the National Debt increased from $113 to $283 Billion. 

The claim of a "surplus" was borne out of a reduction in the public portion of the National Debt.  The Intra-Governmental portion of the National Debt increased every single year during the so called "surplus".    These were the IOU's being tossed into the "lock boxes" that at some point had/have to be paid. 

The Social Security Administration (for example) is legally required to take all surpluses and purchase Gov't Securities.   

So the table itself, according to the figures issued yesterday, showed the Federal Government ran a surplus. Absolutely false. This reporter ought to do his work. This crowd never has asked for or kept up with or checked the facts. Eric Planin--all he has to do is not spread rumors or get into the political message. Both Democrats and Republicans are all running this year and next and saying surplus, surplus. Look what we have done. It is false. The actual figures show that from the beginning of the fiscal year until now we had to borrow $127,800,000,000. - Democratic Senator Ernest Hollings, October 28, 1999 Video: CSPAN

How many times do we have to go through this?

Yes, Bill bombed the Serbs on behalf of Iranian proxy the KLA.

[star seed 7]

Bombing whites, man that bill was a big ol' stud with brass rough ridin' balls.

[sonofdaxjones]

Bombing whites, man that bill was a big ol' stud with brass rough ridin' balls.

Whites aligned with Russia.  Now the Balkanized region aligns itself with NATO.  PNAC and the Brzezinski's Grand Chessboard begins its march to control Central Asia.   At home, it was sold as stopping ethnic cleansing. 

But hey, speaking of Obamabot War Hawk Beems' "they've been killing each other for years" . . . They'd been killing each other for centuries in the Balkans, the Croats marched the Serbs off to death camps by aligning themselves with Hitler during WWII (just one of many occurrences). 

[sonofdaxjones]

If you really think about it, if we start bombing in Syria on behalf of AQ, it won't be the first time.

One of the only good results of the bombing of Serbia was an increased awareness of Islamic terrorism in the Balkans. Albania was soon implicated. On 4 May 1999, the Washington Times reported, citing new reports from US intelligence and Jane’s Defense Review, that the town of Tropoje, Albania was a"common staging area" for Bin Laden’s and the KLA’s forces, and thus "a center for Islamic terrorists." US intelligence also acknowledged that Bin Ladin’s al-Qaeda had "both trained and financially supported" the Albanians, and that the Kosovo border had been infiltrated by Bosnian, Chechen and Afghan mujaheedin, in "…crossings (which) originated in neighboring Albania and, according to the reports, included parties of up to 50 men." The Jane’s report added that "…documents found last year on the body of a KLA member showed that he had escorted several volunteers into Kosovo, including more than a dozen Saudi Arabians. Each volunteer carried a passport identifying him as a Macedonian Albanian."

A combination of chaos and poverty in Albania paved the way for Bin Laden to move in. The Times of London quoted Fatos Klosi, the head of the Albanian intelligence service, who said that bin Laden sent terrorists to Kosovo. Using the front of funding a "humanitarian agency," bin Laden muscled into Albania as far back as 1994.

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/deliso5.html

[OregonSmock]

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/

Q: During the Clinton administration was the federal budget balanced? Was the federal deficit erased?

A: Yes to both questions, whether you count Social Security or not.

The Clinton years showed the effects of a large tax increase that Clinton pushed through in his first year, and that Republicans incorrectly claim is the "largest tax increase in history." It fell almost exclusively on upper-income taxpayers. Clinton’s fiscal 1994 budget also contained some spending restraints. An equally if not more powerful influence was the booming economy and huge gains in the stock markets, the so-called dot-com bubble, which brought in hundreds of millions in unanticipated tax revenue from taxes on capital gains and rising salaries.

Clinton’s large budget surpluses also owe much to the Social Security tax on payrolls. Social Security taxes now bring in more than the cost of current benefits, and the "Social Security surplus" makes the total deficit or surplus figures look better than they would if Social Security wasn’t counted. 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. So any way you count it, the federal budget was balanced and the deficit was erased, if only for a while.

Update, Feb. 11: Some readers wrote to us saying we should have made clear the difference between the federal deficit and the federal debt. A deficit occurs when the government takes in less money than it spends in a given year. The debt is the total amount the government owes at any given time. So the debt goes up in any given year by the amount of the deficit, or it decreases by the amount of any surplus. The debt the government owes to the public decreased for a while under Clinton, but the debt was by no means erased.

Other readers have noted a USA Today story stating that, under an alternative type of accounting, the final four years of the Clinton administration taken together would have shown a deficit. This is based on an annual document called the "Financial Report of the U.S. Government," which reports what the governments books would look like if kept on an accrual basis like those of most corporations, rather than the cash basis that the government has always used. The principal difference is that under accrual accounting the government would book immediately the costs of promises made to pay future benefits to government workers and Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries. But even under accrual accounting, the annual reports showed surpluses of $69.2 billion in fiscal 1998,  $76.9 billion in fiscal 1999, and $46 billion for fiscal year 2000.  So even if the government had been using that form of accounting the deficit would have been erased for those three years.

Don't believe anything Dax says.  He's just regurgitating a bunch of teabagger nonsense from sources like the Drudge Report.  Dude is a total hack. 

[OregonSmock]

Jon Stewart knocks it out of the park (as usual):

http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/thu-september-12-2013-billy-crystal

[sonofdaxjones]

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/

Q: During the Clinton administration was the federal budget balanced? Was the federal deficit erased?

A: Yes to both questions, whether you count Social Security or not.

The Clinton years showed the effects of a large tax increase that Clinton pushed through in his first year, and that Republicans incorrectly claim is the "largest tax increase in history." It fell almost exclusively on upper-income taxpayers. Clinton’s fiscal 1994 budget also contained some spending restraints. An equally if not more powerful influence was the booming economy and huge gains in the stock markets, the so-called dot-com bubble, which brought in hundreds of millions in unanticipated tax revenue from taxes on capital gains and rising salaries.

Clinton’s large budget surpluses also owe much to the Social Security tax on payrolls. Social Security taxes now bring in more than the cost of current benefits, and the "Social Security surplus" makes the total deficit or surplus figures look better than they would if Social Security wasn’t counted. But even if we remove Social Security from the equation, there was a surplus of $1.fizz billion in fiscal 1999 and $86.4 billion in fiscal 2000. So any way you count it, the federal budget was balanced and the deficit was erased, if only for a while.

Update, Feb. 11: Some readers wrote to us saying we should have made clear the difference between the federal deficit and the federal debt. A deficit occurs when the government takes in less money than it spends in a given year. The debt is the total amount the government owes at any given time. So the debt goes up in any given year by the amount of the deficit, or it decreases by the amount of any surplus. The debt the government owes to the public decreased for a while under Clinton, but the debt was by no means erased.

Other readers have noted a USA Today story stating that, under an alternative type of accounting, the final four years of the Clinton administration taken together would have shown a deficit. This is based on an annual document called the "Financial Report of the U.S. Government," which reports what the governments books would look like if kept on an accrual basis like those of most corporations, rather than the cash basis that the government has always used. The principal difference is that under accrual accounting the government would book immediately the costs of promises made to pay future benefits to government workers and Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries. But even under accrual accounting, the annual reports showed surpluses of $69.2 billion in fiscal 1998,  $76.fizz billion in fiscal 1999, and $46 billion for fiscal year 2000.  So even if the government had been using that form of accounting the deficit would have been erased for those fizz years.

Don't believe anything Dax says.  He's just regurgitating a bunch of teabagger nonsense from sources like the Drudge Report.  Dude is a total hack.

aka as the Federal Government.

Tell me what year the National Debt did not increase Beems. 

I am laughing how your fact check guy just kind of brushes right over the absolute fact that the gov't tossed billions of dollars of IOU's into the so called "lock boxes". 

You just regurgitate the DNC/left blogosphere talking points.

"The debt was by no means erased"    No $hit 

[sonofdaxjones]

In Federal FY 2000 the Gov't borrowed $246.5 Billion in surpluses from the various trust funds, by law that was all "invested" in U.S. Gov't securities to "balance" the budget, that $246.5 Billion has to be paid back to the trust funds at some point in the future . . . with interest.

None-the-less, the national debt still increased in Federal FY 2000 by nearly $18 billion dollars.

Social Security is only one of 8 "trust funds" that the gov't takes all their respective surpluses from and "invests" them in Federal Gov't Securities . . . that have to be paid back down the line.

[OregonSmock]

This is why you're a right wing hack, 'Pad.  You complain about the national debt, and then you can't even give Clinton credit for balancing the budget and achieving the largest budget surplus in US history.  No, the entire national debt wasn't paid down, but some of the surplus was used to pay off some of it.  The fact that you can't even recognize this fact speaks volumes about how hyper-partisan you are.

[sonofdaxjones]

This is why you're a right wing hack, 'Pad.  You complain about the national debt, and then you can't even give Clinton credit for balancing the budget and achieving the largest budget surplus in US history.  No, the entire national debt wasn't paid down, but some of the surplus was used to pay off some of it.  The fact that you can't even recognize this speaks to your hyper-partisan nature.

When the budget has to be "balanced" with borrowing it's just fun and games, when not one penny of the national debt was paid down, and it in fact increased every single year under the Clinton administration it's just a bunch of hype so Left wing blogs and people like you can wax your johnson.  It means nothing at the end, even more dangerous. the money was borrowed (and still is) from TRUST funds that support people on fixed incomes etc. etc..  Open up the lockboxes and all you see is IOU's that had to be paid for by all us and for generations to come.

That's a fantasy budget surplus not grounded in any form of reality.

[OregonSmock]

This is why you're a right wing hack, 'Pad.  You complain about the national debt, and then you can't even give Clinton credit for balancing the budget and achieving the largest budget surplus in US history.  No, the entire national debt wasn't paid down, but some of the surplus was used to pay off some of it.  The fact that you can't even recognize this speaks to your hyper-partisan nature.

When the budget has to be "balanced" with borrowing it's just fun and games, when not one penny of the national debt was paid down, and it in fact increased every single year under the Clinton administration it's just a bunch of hype so Left wing blogs and people like you can wax your johnson.  It means nothing at the end, even more dangerous. the money was borrowed (and still is) from TRUST funds that support people on fixed incomes etc. etc..  Open up the lockboxes and all you see is IOU's that had to be paid for by all us and for generations to come.

That's a fantasy budget surplus not grounded in any form of reality.

When the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.  Just another example of why you're a joke and why no one should take anything you say seriously. 

[Rage Against the McKee]

Good grief, dax. Clinton balanced the budget. That has nothing to do with how ridiculous the deficit has been every year under Obama. Sure, 2009 was Bush's budget, but Obama has had 4 years since then to fix it, and while it is getting better incrementally, it's just not enough.

[sonofdaxjones]

This is why you're a right wing hack, 'Pad.  You complain about the national debt, and then you can't even give Clinton credit for balancing the budget and achieving the largest budget surplus in US history.  No, the entire national debt wasn't paid down, but some of the surplus was used to pay off some of it.  The fact that you can't even recognize this speaks to your hyper-partisan nature.

When the budget has to be "balanced" with borrowing it's just fun and games, when not one penny of the national debt was paid down, and it in fact increased every single year under the Clinton administration it's just a bunch of hype so Left wing blogs and people like you can wax your johnson.  It means nothing at the end, even more dangerous. the money was borrowed (and still is) from TRUST funds that support people on fixed incomes etc. etc..  Open up the lockboxes and all you see is IOU's that had to be paid for by all us and for generations to come.

That's a fantasy budget surplus not grounded in any form of reality.

When the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.  Just another example of why you're a joke and why no one should take anything you say seriously.

Listen to your logic, we had a surplus, but we still owed more money.   Hell, the Gov't didn't even use all the money they borrowed (with interest) from the trust funds in FY 2000.   Had they used ALL the money they BORROWED from the Trust Funds then and only then could you say they had (as only our gov't could say it) a "balanced" budget.   But they didn't use all the money they BORROWED via intergovernmental lending to pay down the public portion of the National Debt, thus, the national debt still increased in FY 2000.

The gov't is reporting BORROWED money as Income.

[OregonSmock]

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/sep/23/bill-clinton/bill-clinton-says-his-administration-paid-down-deb/

Now let's look at Clinton's tenure. Using the public debt figures, we see that the debt rose year by year during the first four fiscal years of Clinton's stewardship, then fell during each of the following four fiscal years, from a 1997 peak to a 2001 trough.

So using this measurement, Clinton is correct that "we paid down the debt for four years," though he did overestimate the amount that was paid down when he said it was $600 billion. The actual amount was $452 billion -- which was equal to about fizz percent of the existing public debt in 1997.

But what about gross federal debt? On this score, NewsBusters is correct: In each fiscal year from 1993 to 2001, the gross federal debt increased, because the increase in money in government trust funds exceeded the annual decreases in the federal budget deficit.

So by one of these measures, Clinton is correct, and by another, he's wrong.

"The discrepancy between the two concepts of federal debt in these years occurred because of program surpluses and the rapid growth of reserves held by the various trust fund accounts, such as Social Security," said Brookings Institution economist Gary Burtless. Social Security surpluses don't go into a "lock box" but are instead invested in government bonds; the proceeds of these purchases go into the general treasury, and when the bonds mature, the treasury is obligated to pay back the Social Security trust both principal and interest.

"The growth of these surpluses meant the rest of the federal government did not have to issue as much debt to the public," Burtless said. "In fact, the federal government paid off more of its old debt than it issued new debt to the public. Therefore, net federal debt held by the public declined."

So, is there any reason to prefer any single measurement? On this question, we couldn't find a clear consensus.

The Congressional Budget Office wrote in a 2009 report that government-held debt, such as the Social Security trust fund, "has no direct, immediate impact on the economy. Instead, it simply represents credits to the various government accounts that can be redeemed as necessary to authorize payments for benefits or other expenses." By contrast, CBO wrote, "long-term projections of federal debt held by the public, measured relative to the size of the economy, provide useful yardsticks for assessing the sustainability of fiscal policies."

James Horney, of the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, noted that most key studies of the debt in recent years have focused on public debt. Horney gets support from a leading conservative, Dan Mitchell of the libertarian Cato Institute. Public debt, Mitchell said, "is the key variable since it measures the amount of money the government is draining from private capital markets, or adding, in the case of surpluses. Government spending grew very slowly during the Clinton years, just 2.fizz percent annually between 1994 and 1998. This was a very good accomplishment, and Bill Clinton, and the GOP Congress, should be proud. If we could do the same thing now, we could balance the budget in about buzz years and make all the tax cuts permanent."

Any way you spin it, Clinton is the last President to achieve a budget surplus and pay off a portion of the national debt.  Like Mitchell points out, if we had just stuck with Clinton's policies, we'd probably be pretty close to paying off the national debt by this point.

[sonofdaxjones]

Clinton can say they paid down debt all he wants, here's reality:

In Federal FY 2000 the Public Portion of the National Debt Decreased by $230.8 Billion to $fizz.405 Trillion.   The Intergovernmental Portion of the National Debt increased by $248.78 Billion to $2.68 Trillion.  Making for an increase of the National Debt of $17.fizz Billion.

The same year, the Federal Gov't borrowed $245 Billion dollars from the various trust funds and then called it income.

Nice edit there Beems.

Good luck with the Governmental accounting that calls borrowing "income" BTW.

[OregonSmock]

Who was the last Republican President to balance the budget, 'Pad? 

[sonofdaxjones]

Who was the last Republican President to balance the budget, 'Pad?

LOL, what difference does that make?

Particularly in light of the fact that our government says that borrowed money is "income".

If you're going to get all DNC talking point on me (per usual) what party controlled Congress during the time of this "surplus" Beems?

[OregonSmock]

Nice tapout.  I'll ask again: who was the last Republican president to balance the budget?

[sonofdaxjones]

I don't know.

But once again, look at your logic "we balanced the budget . . . but we still owe more money"

"we borrowed $245 Billion Dollars and we're going to call that income"

You just can't get by that idiocy Beems, sorry dude.

So which party controlled the nations "purse strings" during the last 6 year of the Clinton Administration?  I mean, give credit where credit is due if you're going to claim a mythical "balanced budget". 

[OregonSmock]

Your attitude is typical of many Americans these days, 'Pad.  If we can't solve everything all at once, why bother?  That kind of mentality is counter productive.  Rome wasn't built in a day.  Clinton's fiscal policy had us on track to balance the national deficit within a decade or so.  And yes, Clinton worked with Republicans and compromised with them on a number of issues, including government spending.  I give both Clinton and conservatives credit for working together and getting things done.  Personally, I'd love to see more of it with the current administration.

[sonofdaxjones]

Your attitude is typical of many Americans these days, 'Pad.  If we can't solve everything all at once, why bother?  That kind of mentality is counter productive.  Rome wasn't built in a day.  Clinton's fiscal policy had us on track to balance the national deficit within a decade or so.  And yes, Clinton worked with Republicans and compromised with them on a number of issues, including government spending.  I give both Clinton and conservatives credit for working together and getting things done.  Personally, I'd love to see more of it with the current administration.

What a load of $hit in regards to your "why bother", I just don't live in fantasy land.   More long term debt obligations created out of surpluses essentially stolen out of so called "trust funds" primarily set aside to support old people on fixed incomes etc. etc.  That is borrowed, then with a wave of a magic wand called "income" so a bunch of beltway boys and girls can run around and try and claim they "balanced" the budget and in fact had a "surplus". 

I give Clinton credit for paying down the public debt during the short term, sadly they tossed around $361 Billion more in IOU's into the "lock boxes" over and above the public debt reduction.   $361 Billion that still has to be paid back in the future, with interest, in trust funds that primarily support people with no other source of income.

So if that makes you feel good, and makes you feel like something was actually be accomplished in terms of the U.S. long term debt obligations so be it.   But at the end of the day, the gov't owed $1.4 trillion more after the Clinton, than before and that's with .com bubble (and subsequent painful burst). 

[sonofdaxjones]

Now back to Syria regime change.

Welp, looks like Assad is saying that he'll hand over his WMD's when the US quits arming the rebels . . . just as direct U.S. aid (as far as we know) just started rolling.   Meanwhile the administration is  about whether those weapons and systems end up in the hands of AQ elements.

[OregonSmock]

Now back to Syria regime change.

Welp, looks like Assad is saying that he'll hand over his WMD's when the US quits arming the rebels . . . just as direct U.S. aid (as far as we know) just started rolling.   Meanwhile the administration is  about whether those weapons and systems end up in the hands of AQ elements.

Yeah, I'm with you on arming the rebels.  It's a bad idea, and it's only going to end up hurting Americans in the long run.  I wish we'd just back off and let Russia deal with this mess.

[EllRobersonisInnocent]

and the winner by 3rd round TKO, OregonSmock.