I'll take the directly sourced words from a Senator on the floor of the U.S. Senate (A Democrat no less) over the non sourced words that likely came from a partisan website who just wants to continue to perpetuate the myth.
You can't run a surplus, if you're increasing the debt on an annual basis at the same time. The national debt increased every single year Bill Clinton was in office. Admittedly in FY 2000, the national debt only increased $18 billion year over year.
In FY 2000 Intra-Governmental debt increased $248 billion dollars, as in $248 billion dollars worth of IOU's were tossed into the various lockboxes. By the same token, the public debt side of the total national debt decreased $230 million dollars in FY 2000.
From Federal Fiscal Year 1998 to Federal Fiscal Year 2001. The Federal Gov't threw around $842 billion dollars worth of IOU's into the various lockboxes and the U.S. gov't ended that period with a net increase to the national debt of about $392 Billion, after retiring $450 billion dollars of the public side of the national debt. So, despite all those "surplus" years, at the end of Federal FY 2001, the people of the United States were on the hook for an additional $392 billion in debt obligations. Yet, somehow Democrat propagandist still want us to believe the Federal Gov't ran a surplus. Only in the Federal government can borrowing be called revenue.
We,know,who controlled congress when the budget busters below were implemented .
-two Middle East occupations.
-Medicare prescription drug benefit
- over 100% increase in pentagon spending
-new homeland security dept.
These things are still with us and Republicans have never ever wanted to raise a dime to pay for it.
Your ilk is lousy at managing and governing.
Who said they were my ilk. I just enjoy tweaking progressives who attempt to obfuscate and lay blame elsewhere when they're in charge and everything is going even farther into the shitter at a more rapid rate.
Who has embraced DHS, the CIA and the NSA with extreme zeal since taking office in 2008? Who has given the CIA a perpetual hall pass since 2008? Which has culminated in the destabilization of multiple countries, has killed 1000's of people, created hundreds of thousands of refugee's and has potentially made Al Queda or Al-CIAda stronger than ever? Who has defended the so called draconian measures of the previous administration in court with such a fervor, even former leaders of the East German Stasi look upon in awe? Which administration has embraced and propagates the concept of indefinite detention? Which administration has the New York Times and the Associated Press calling it the most closed, most secretive and least transparent administration in modern American presidential history?
Which administration is pointing their finger with pride at a relatively anemic "recovery" only brought about by the constant pumping of the Fed, while overseeing the lowest workforce participation rate since they began compiling that statistic . . . now halfway through a 2nd term? Thus artificially lowering the unemployment rate. Which administration thanks the flying spaghetti monster every day that commodities like food and fuel aren't factored into the inflation rate? Who has U.S. corporations so scared that they continually stockpile cash offshore? Which administration breaks its own rules repeatedly when it comes to amending what will likely be the single most catastrophic piece of legislation in American history? Which administration has significant portions of the constituency that they supposedly championed now saying that the current administration has pretty much failed them in every conceivable fashion? Only coming back around when its time to open up the voting booths.
And on, and on, and on, and on.
The Democratic party: It's always somebody else's fault when we're in charge.