Clinton Did NOT Have a Budget Surplus

Even the two Marks, Steyn and Belling, got it wrong as they interviewed each other on today's Rush progam about Steyn's new book.  There was no surplus, much less a balanced budget during the latter Clinton years.  It was all accounting tricks that allowed the Dems to assert that then and it continues now.  Social Security and other trust funds are required to buy government bonds when they are running a surplus and those are what bailed out the budget figures.

From the article at the link below:

"...Social Security is legally required to use all its surpluses to buy U.S. Government securities. From Social Security's standpoint, it has a multi-trillion dollar reserve in the form of U.S. Government securities. When the Social Security system starts to falter due to insufficient contributions to pay for all the benefits of retiring baby-boomers, probably around 2017, it will start cashing those securities and will expect the U.S. Government to pay it back, with interest. The problem is, the government doesn't have the money. The money has already been spent--in part, effectively, to pay down the public debt under Clinton."


And if that doesn't get your attention, this is the money quote from that article:


"Social Security isn't the only trust fund in the federal budget. There are a number of others including the civil service retirement fund, federal supplementary medical insurance trust fund, unemployment trust fund, military retirement trust fund, etc. All of these trust funds, like Social Security, invest their surpluses in U.S. government bonds and increase intragovernmental debt. And like Social Security, their surpluses really shouldn't count toward a "surplus" because the excess money they contribute to federal coffers actually has to be borrowed by the government from the trust funds."


Set everything else aside, stop that multitasking and pay attention while you read through this:


http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/craigsteiner/2011/08/22/the_clinton_surplus_myth/page/full/

I wasn't even going to post this today, as interesting as it is, because I figured your eyes would glaze over.  That is, until two guest hosts started buying into the Clinton Surplus Myth.  Now you know.