Is the Clinton Surplus a Myth?

[OzzyKP]

This site says yes:

http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/16

[Asher]

Ok.

Let's all take time out of our lives to discuss the blog post of some no-name hyperpartisan whackjob from the internet.

He's got an animated GIF of the American flag, but he's so patriotic he left his country to go live in Mexico for 10 years.

[MikeH]

You could post that in 90% of threads here. Actually a good idea.

[Asher]

For what it's worth, I did read it for 30 seconds until I discovered the man doesn't know the definition of a fiscal surplus in terms of budgets and his entire argument is predicated on that misunderstanding and semantics.

[MikeH]

Oh, does he post here?

[giblets]

When the government collects payroll taxes, gives the money to the "social security trust fund" and uses the money to buy treasuries, the government is no more or less indebted than it already was. So no, it wasn't a real surplus (if by surplus you mean reducing the government's debt burden) unless the government decided it wanted to default on the debts held by itself.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Under the accounting rules that the USA government generously allows itself to use, it had the surplus officially mentioned.
Under the accounting rules that the USA government rigorously requires for others like all private business, charities, non profit organizations, individual citizens, etc, (most particularly the one pertaining to future liabilities such as pensions) the government would have had a huge deficit in those years.
So it is a matter of the government writing special accounting rules just for itself to hide large parts of the deficit. This pertains to all administrations and congresses, not just the Clinton years, in which, by the way, what little spending austerity that existed then was mainly forced by republicans.

[DaShi]

When did Ozzy become a hack? I mean other than the 8 year olds voting stuff.

[self biased]

lefty scaevola hath spoken. so sayeth the Shepard, so sayeth the Flock.

[OzzyKP]

When did Ozzy become a hack? I mean other than the 8 year olds voting stuff.

I raised a question. Do you have an opinion on it or are you just a brainless idiot who'd rather make personal insults then think for a moment? If so I'd be happy to add you to my ignore list.

[Dinner]

For what it's worth, I did read it for 30 seconds until I discovered the man doesn't know the definition of a fiscal surplus in terms of budgets and his entire argument is predicated on that misunderstanding and semantics.

Believe it or not the whole "Clinton never had a surplus" nonsense has been a right wing talk radio talking point for the last 12 years. It's been debunked enough and is really old hat by now.

[DaShi]

I raised a question. Do you have an opinion on it or are you just a brainless idiot who'd rather make personal insults then think for a moment? If so I'd be happy to add you to my ignore list.

Don't BS. You did not just raise a question. You posted a troll then followed up with an obvious piece of political hackery. That you think you shouldn't be insulted for it is laughable.

[Jaguar]

The right wing is completely correct about this - or, at a minimum, the left must necessarily be wrong, because it claims two mutually exclusive things about the budget.

[Asher]

Not completely correct. It's how the US government account works, regardless of party.

[Jaguar]

Not completely correct. It's how the US government account works, regardless of party.

This man says the official accounting is wrong. You respond "but it's how the accounting is done officially." That doesn't prove him wrong. He knows he's at odds with the official accounting. That's the entire point of the article.

Here's what proves him right, and the official accounting wrong. Which of the following is true?

(a) Debt owed to the social security trust fund represents a legitimate liability.
(b) Bonds owned by the social security trust fund represent legitimate assets.

The official government accounting argues (b) but not (a), which is nonsense. (a) necessarily implies (b) and vice versa.