Horvath wrote:

There never was a surplus. Here's the figures for the National Debt:


09/30/2002 $6,228,235,965,597.16
09/28/2001 $5,807,463,412,200.06
09/29/2000 $5,674,178,209,886.86
09/30/1999 $5,656,270,901,615.43
09/30/1998 $5,526,193,008,897.62
09/30/1997 $5,413,146,011,397.34
09/30/1996 $5,224,810,939,135.73
09/29/1995 $4,973,982,900,709.39
09/30/1994 $4,692,749,910,013.32
09/30/1993 $4,411,488,883,139.38
09/30/1992 $4,064,620,655,521.66
09/30/1991 $3,665,303,351,697.03
09/28/1990 $3,233,313,451,777.25
09/29/1989 $2,857,430,960,187.32
09/30/1988 $2,602,337,712,041.16
09/30/1987 $2,350,276,890,953.00

SOURCE: BUREAU OF THE PUBLIC DEBT

As anyone can see, the debt increased every year. There never was a
surplus. It was another Clinton lie.

That's total debt, including both public and *government* owned
obligations. Only the public owned obligations reflect the budget
surplus (or deficit) -- the government owned ones reflect federal
agencies buying government securities as investments.

Public-owned debt was:

09/28/2001 3,339,310,176,094.74
09/29/2000 3,405,303,490,221.20
09/30/1999 3,636,104,594,501.81
09/30/1998 3,733,864,472,163.53
09/30/1997 3,789,667,546,849.60

Which clearly shows budget surpluses (from tax revenues being
greater than expenditures) in 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001.
It's now up to 4,218,409,719,114.26 (as of 6/25/04), an
increase of 879,099,543,019.52 for Bush's budgets so far.

At any rate your figures aren't accurate representations of
the budget process -- Clinton's last few budgets DID run
surpluses, more taxes being collected than the government
was spending. The difference between the *budget* and
the federal debt is government agencies -- trust funds, like
Social Security -- buying securities for investments.