Subj: A short history of the deficit




He is at it again.

Yesterday, the national debt was some $6 trillion -- until Bill Clinton figured out a way
to reduce it to $3.5 billion, somehow. And he plans to have us pay it off within a decade or so with the surplus his wonderful policies have produced.

But there is no surplus -- only the appearance of one because of the surplus in the
social security budget. And one that appears only because his policies were not
adopted by the Congress.

Let us look at the record. The deficit as a percentage of the GDP rose steadily beginning with about the late 1960's, and grew nearly 6 % of the GDP until the
Reagan administration, since which it has declined steadily. That reduction also
received a real boost with the election of the 104th Congress, as well. Along the way,
it fell precipitously with the Nixon presidency, and soared again with the Democrat
Congresses after the 1974 election and then moreso with Carter. I also swelled again
with the recession of 1990 and the S & L bail-out -- heading downward again only after Newt Gingrich's Republican Revolution.

The data can be plotted for verification of that:


See Graph