Quote from flyinglead:
It means it took two fiscal conservatives 12 years to straighten out Carter's mess, One Liberal 8 years to screw it up again and One Conservative to straighten it out then screw it up again.
Remember W inherited the start of a recession.
Course that is all meaningless, becasue it doesn't take into consideration who controlled Congress.
Quote from gnome:
It's all very clever...
The Prez drafts the budget for spending and then sends it to Congress.... they more-or-less give it the "rubber stamp" approval.
Then when people bitch because the Gummint spent 25% more than they took in taxes, they can say, "(a) The Pres doesn't have authority... that's Congress", and (b) Congress says, "we're just supporting the elected leader of our country".
That way, it seems there is nobody to blame for profligate spending of tax payer money, because it's always somebody else's fault. Most Americans can't see through this charade.
Quote from olias:
Points taken, but I think the issue was brought up to point out that Clinton doesn't deserve all the credit for the surplus. It was mostly because of the republican congress.
Regardless of the argument concerning Clinton's "fortunate" timing, the last three Republican administrations made their own "luck" by gang raping the national treasury with their own brand of "fiscal conservatism."Quote from gnome:
Clinton supporters tend to forget how the surplus was achieved. (1) He raised income taxes... Duh!, and (2) His timing with the .com bubble (and its ill-gotten capital gains tax windfall) was fortunate.
Quote from gnome:
It's all very clever...
The Prez drafts the budget for spending and then sends it to Congress.... they more-or-less give it the "rubber stamp" approval.
Then when people bitch because the Gummint spent 25% more than they took in taxes, they can say, "(a) The Pres doesn't have authority... that's Congress", and (b) Congress says, "we're just supporting the elected leader of our country".
That way, it seems there is nobody to blame for profligate spending of tax payer money, because it's always somebody else's fault. Most Americans can't see through this charade.