On 18 Feb 2005 10:05:15 -0800, "Juan" wrote:

Baloney. Clinton inherited a nation in debt, he paid off the debt and
the nation flourished.

No he did not. And the nation was hardly "flourshing" during his last
two years in office.

Clinton used a different accounting trick to say, during his second
term, that debt was being paid down because it was stretched over TEN
years - the surplus that Clinton and his economic team said existed,
never existed in real time - in the future, yes - at the time no. It
was the same as EBITDA - it never existed in reality. And he knew it,
economists knew it and Larry Summers Clinton's last Secretary of the
Treasury admitted it.

Here are some facts for you Jimmy Neutrons on the right and left.
This covers the Bush the Elder and Clinton economic policies.

Tax hikes failed to produce expected revenues. Income tax receipts
rose 18 percent slower rate with the taxes of the late '80s and '90s
than they did during the Regan era.

A 30 percent build-up in real federal nondefense spending. Federal
spending for civilian programs accounted for a larger share of GDP
than at any previous time in American history.

Runaway spending on Medicare, Medicaid and welfare. In constant
dollars Medicare spending grew by $75 billion or 73 percent, Medicaid
spending grew by $47 billion or 112 percent, and welfare spending
climbed by $93 billion or 72 percent.

A one-third decline in the military budget in the post-Cold War era.
Defense spending had a smaller share of the federal budget than at any
time in American history. Defense cutbacks of roughly $100 billion
helped camouflage the large nondefense spending increases in the
1990s.

Record high budget deficits in the 1990s.The nation's economy under
performed in the 1990s under Bush and Clinton relative to the 1980s.
Inflation was low, 3.6 percent, and unemployment was held in check at
6.4 percent. Other measures of economic health are far more
discouraging such as sluggish economic growth (1.8% vs 3.2% during the
Regan Era), slow job growth from 1989 to 1995 was 1.3% and the net was
a loss of 200,000 jobs and by 1995, real family income fell 5%.

And those are just the factual highlights. If you consider the other
aspects of Clinton's disregard for the economic facts of life in the
last part of his Presidency, he was just a continuation of the first
Bush's disastrous economic shepherding.

Flourished indeed.

~~ sheesh ~~

Later,

Tom