(Malcolm Teas) wrote in message . com...
"C J Campbell" wrote in message ...
"Cecil Chapman" wrote in message
m...
P.S. You're right, we should all thank Mr. Bush for turning a hard-earned
surplus budget (earned under Clinton's rule) into a 4.3 trillion dollar
DEFICIT.

That is really funny coming from a Democrat. Here we have Democrats accusing
Bush of behaving too much like a Democrat. ROFL.

Just for historical accuracy I think the "behaving too much like a
Democrat" thing is pretty outdated. After all, the only balanced
budgets in the last thirty years has been with the Democrat Bill
Clinton in office. (Source: Appendix F of the CBO publication The
Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2005-2014.)

No matter what you think of Clinton, neither of the Bush presidents,
nor Ford, nor Reagan managed that. In fact, the deficit climbed
significantly in the Reagan and first Bush terms. First time over one
trillion. two trillion, and three trillion in those years.

So, high time to adjust our view to reality.

-Malcolm Teas

Matt Barrow says:
And his role in those surpluses was...?

Well, looking at the data, he proposed and succeeded in passing a
budget that reduced the overall deficit for the country.

If you're talking about how the surpluses came about, he took
advantage of the boom to propose budgets - and get them passed - that
created the surpluses.

Matt Whiting:
Luck. He was lucky to be following George Bush the First

Huh? Perhaps that was luck, perhaps not. I don't, for example,
remember any effort under Bush senior to, for example, make
governement more cost efficient. There was that under Clinton. But,
all presidents have some good luck and some bad. But not all
presidents use the good luck effectively.

John Theune:
I think a more balanced view might be the relative growth of the budget
vs inflation during various administrations. The main reason Clinton got
to run a surplus was a huge increase in income due to the internet bubble
and the capital gains taxes it generated. While a surplus is a good
thing, it must also be viewed against spending as I certainly don't want
a budget surplus if it means they take all my money!

Inflation fell during the Clinton years. It was higher, often
significantly higher in the Bush (senior) and Reagan years. Sure,
there was a boom or bubble. There were booms and bubbles in years
past. Several times in the 60's and 70's too. However, those
presidents didn't take advantage of it to lower our deficit then.

Bob Noel:
it's high time people learned which branch of the Federal
Government is responsible for appropriation.

Well, the president proposes the budget, Congress passes it. But,
it's also high time we recognize how these things get done too.
There's plenty of negotiation between the two branches on what gets in
and what doesn't. A successful president knows how to negotiate as
well as propose a budget.

Matt Barrow:
And time that people learned the difference between CORRELATION and
CAUSATION.

Also, it's time they learned to dig in and get economic data that
explains
such things as tax revenue during boom years, the y2K run-up, that
the boom
90's were mostly attributable to Bill GATES, not Bill CLINTON. That
the
ground work and foundation for the 90's were laid in the Reagan
80's...

Well, there's something interesting in that Clinton was the ONLY
president that had a budget with a surplus since 1962 (possibly
earlier, that's how early the data I looked as was). This was across
both parties, across differing Congresses, and across boom and bust
cycles. Sounds like correlation to me.

Bill Gates was not personally responsible for the boom. If any single
person was it's Tim Berners-Lee who came up with HTML, HTTP, and the
initial versions of web technology. But, it's not just one person.
It's many people in many areas expanding into the potential of
internet technology. Some of us succeeded wildly, some didn't, some
of us crashed and burned. Actually, Microsoft is more a marketing
driven company than a tech company. Like many large companies they're
more of a follower in technology than a leader. (I write software for
a living and have been involved in computers for a number of years,
seen 'em come and seen 'em go.)

As far as Reagan laying the groundwork, well, he was the one who
proposed & got passed the budgets that caused the significant deficit
in the first place. All prior deficits pale to his. Deficits raise
interest rates and slow investments.

In any case, that's it for me on this debate. Believe what you want.
I enjoy a good debate as a way of better understanding of what each
other thinks. But this isn't it. Back to aviation for me.

-Malcolm Teas