Anyone want to help me argue against "the surplus never existed"?

[redqueen]

Has anyone heard of this rule change re: counting social security receipts in the budget?


"The 'surplus' you speak of was a sham that both political parties willingly foisted on the voters. The surplus was actually based on the fact that they counted Social Security receipts in the budget. Without the influx of money from SS (and other cook-the-book tricks), we would've been running in the red during the 90's, same as always. It was politically expedient for both Donkey-Punchers and Repubelicans to crow about the great and awesome surplus, a surplus that never existed.

Slick Willy was a spendaholic who wanted to spread federal bunk in retarded fashion, just like every other president (remember midnight basketball, the pork-laden 1993 stimulus package?) The only sort of fiscal discipline Billy-Boy ever had was imposed upon him by the GOP Congress that took over in 1994. Even that phenomenon can be chalked up less to ideology than political realities; gridlock between Democrat Bill and Republican Congress meant that spending had to go down.

Besides I'm a Milton Friedman disciple. Deficits by themselves don't scare me; it's when the percentage of deficit as it relates to GDP goes bonkers that economies start to tank. We're nohwere near 1929, 1987, 1990-91 or 1920's Germany. While I'm annoyed about Bush's spending, it's not for the reasons you might think."