There it sits, lonely and forlorn on my shelf. A leather-bound copy of the 1999 Budget of the United States of America. A gift from President Clinton to the folks on his team, it was the first balanced budget in decades.
But it wasn’t supposed to be the last. Indeed, experts projected surpluses as far as the eye could see: $5.7 trillion in surpluses, to be exact. The surpluses were so strong that deep into the future—in 2009—the entire national debt was going to be zero. For the first time since Andy Jackson was president, the United States of America would not owe a dime.
It didn’t quite work out that way, did it? As Washington seems paralyzed, our economy stagnates, and America’s full faith and credit is on the brink, it is useful to recall how we got here. This was not an act of nature. There was no unforeseen earthquake, no tsunami, no hurricane that wiped out our surplus. It was instead a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and a Republican president who squandered the surplus. In full possession of the federal government for the first time since Eisenhower, the GOP—with, to be fair, some help from some very foolish Democrats—systematically dismantled the economic and fiscal policies that produced the strongest economy and largest budget surplus in our history.
The rest of the article is crap because I don’t care about sides. I don’t pick sides and vote in an educated way each year. Once you think in left / right or day / night, you’ve lost. Sides creates civil tension and war. Sides are bullshit.
However, the opening of this article was great! I remember vividly the excitement I felt in 1999 when I was in middle school when I watched a report on 60 minutes about Clinton balancing the budget. There would be a surplus by now if the plan had been followed. I don’t blame the Iraq war or the Bush Tax Cuts or anything else. Blame can be spread all over but it’s more important to realize we DID balance the budget and the man that did it is still alive. Call Bill up and balance it. We can do this.