patrick.net

Nice thought, but basing projections based on what was happening on the top of the tech boom and coming off all the Y2K spending was probably little more than wishful thinking. Not absolving Bush for anything, but try to put a little more thought into your partisan ramblings next time. If you want a complete rubbish analysis of your wonderful chart, note the upward trajectory of the debt after the democrats took the house and see it skyrocket after Obama took office.

EightBall says

Nice thought, but basing projections based on what was happening on the top of the tech boom and coming off all the Y2K spending was probably little more than wishful thinking. Not absolving Bush for anything, but try to put a little more thought into your partisan ramblings next time. If you want a complete rubbish analysis of your wonderful chart, note the upward trajectory of the debt after the democrats took the house and see it skyrocket after Obama took office.

I agree.

I usually add in all the temporary construction jobs from the housing bubble and the Y2K bubble as part of the "Clinton" success story. It's easy to be in charge when the economy is being temporarily propped up.

eh...it's hard to say.

Government spending is dependent on congress. While the president must create a budget congress is of no legal obligation to pass it blindly.

What happened in the 1990's was gridlock. Republicans wanted tax cuts..clinton blocked them. Clinton wanted spending..republicans blocked it.

We also gained a ton of money from the selling of cell phone spectrum. All of the fees added up. This was something new as there was not as much in the 80's. You also had the dot com bubble.

Let's not also forget much of the corporations that had major scandles were "fine" in the 90's. Enron, worldcom, Adelphia... it wasn't until around 2001/2002 that the reality came into play.

What added up gradually was the bush tax cuts, wars in iraq and afghanistan and the prescription drug bill. Yes tarp and stimulus added to it but the three major ones were the tax cut and wars.

Can some of this be blamed on bush? Sure...but congress went along with both wars. Obama won the primary against hillary saying the war was a mistake and he didn't vote for it. And yet it's taken nearly three years for him to pull the troops out..and Obama also allowed for the tax cuts to be extended.

Both sides sometimes want to court the other parties voters. Republicans did it with the prescription drug bill. Democrats did it by allowing the tax cuts to continue.

Protectionism is iffy as Carter deregulated the airlines, trucking industry (against what Reagan and the teamsters wanted), and rail industry..and some of Patco actually started with him as well. So the path I'd argue was from around 1978 onward with it. We had free labor of movement between california and mexico (Brancero) that operated for 22 years

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracero_Program

Republicans haven't really cut government much. Nixon expanded it significantly and Reagan didn't really when you see outright federal employment.

mdovell says

What added up gradually was the bush tax cuts, wars in iraq and afghanistan and the prescription drug bill. Yes tarp and stimulus added to it but the three major ones were the tax cut and wars.

There was math done on this. TARP added almost nothing, by the way ($16B out of $12.7 trillion). Check out the study from Pew about this: http://www.pewtrusts.org/news_room_detail.aspx?id=85899359317

An NPR blogger reformulated the chart so that the end result is more visible: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/05/03/135954609/in-01-the-u-s-budget-picture-was-rosy-what-happened

The Washington Post also wrote about it, and has a good info graphic.

I know what you mean but it still contributed, it might not be statistically important. The vast majorities were from the wars and the tax cuts.

The other thing with a surplus/deficit is that those are for the year. the amount of money owed for the baby boomer generation for medicare and social security is huge..even with that surplus then (or projected by that graph) we would still have debt from those.We're talking tens upon tens of trillions of dollars.

I believe the chart is just the projection, which was pretty good

Unfortunately, the go-go economy of the late 1990s was just as ephemeral as the later Bush Boom, and I have the chart to prove it:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=36k

Blue line is annual private debt increase, red line is YOY federal debt increase.

We were pumping $2T/yr of credit money into the economy during the late 90s, and the result was a balanced Federal budget.

Similarly, after the 2001-2003 tax cuts we started pumping $3T then $4T/yr into the economy, producing a slightly declining federal deficit in response.

This was all fake as hell though.

mdovell says

We're talking tens upon tens of trillions of dollars.

We don't owe that money, not yet at least.

Bush imposed more regulations at this point in his presidency than Obama has. That is a fact. The Patriot Act. No Child Left Behind. Sarbanes Oxley. The list goes on.