And this is why politics is broken in the US, and in most of the Western world for that matter. What you just said is completely false, but it's being rewarded because people want it to be true. Here [1] is data on the annual deficit. [1] We've only run a "surplus" four times since 1970. Twice under George W Bush, twice under Clinton. Since then it's been going mostly into loony land.
The reason for the quotes is because that's an incomplete picture since various things can affect the debt without being noted in the annual deficit. For instance some programs are considered off-budget, there's various accounting restructuring, and so on. If you simply look at the total debt it has increased every year (again since at least 1970) with the only exception being 1999 to 2000 depending on when you measure it. If you look end of year vs end of year (as opposed to fiscal year), it decreased by a few billion dollars, and that was the only time.
The years of a nominal surplus were 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001. In reality, the only "real" surplus (in other words the public debt decreased) was in 2000, and it was negligible.
I don't find the partisan arguments interesting. Bush had a lower deficit (each and every year) invading and occupying two different countries than any president has ever achieved since then. That is not to praise Bush, but to emphasize that we're comparing horrible vs terrible and trying to argue over which is which. They're all miserable failures, and not just in regards to spending.
> The years of a nominal surplus were 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001.
That's still not twice under George W. Bush, who became President on Jan. 20, 2001, nearly three weeks into calendar year (and nearly four months into federal fiscal year) 2001.
I do appreciate the nitpick - my count was indeed off by one. Now if people only did anything even remotely similar for posts that confirmed their biases. The post I was responding to (that has been repeatedly edited) originally claimed that 'democrats often have budget surpluses' when in reality the only real budget surplus (in that the public debt declined) was 26 years ago, and of a tiny fraction of a percent.
Are there any things you are leaving out in 2008 and 2020-2021 in this analysis though? One self-inflicted from deregulating the finance industry, another a black swan event.
Running wars is a choice, a pandemic hitting not so much.
COVID was a black swan, the completely irresponsible and unnecessary redistribution from taxpayers to company owners that was the PPP was a choice. (One that most other governments worldwide didn’t make.)
> The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) is a $953-billion business loan program established by the United States federal government during the Trump administration in 2020
The reason for the quotes is because that's an incomplete picture since various things can affect the debt without being noted in the annual deficit. For instance some programs are considered off-budget, there's various accounting restructuring, and so on. If you simply look at the total debt it has increased every year (again since at least 1970) with the only exception being 1999 to 2000 depending on when you measure it. If you look end of year vs end of year (as opposed to fiscal year), it decreased by a few billion dollars, and that was the only time.
[1] - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFSD