Almost Classical

My blogs have been inactive for a few weeks while I have been in the process of moving from the Midwest to one of the Original Thirteen. I apologize, but Internet access has been unpredictable at best and blogging on the road proved too difficult to maintain. Thank you for understanding. It is interesting how reliant we are on Internet connections. I will have new posts in the first week of August 2011.

History is constantly rewritten and reinterpreted. Democrats and Republicans are both gifted at such rewrites. However, this isn't my rhetoric blog, this is an economics site. Let's take a look at the historical realities of claims by Democrats that the "Clinton Tax Rates" were responsible for boom times and a reduced annual deficit. A quick note: We did not have a surplus under Pres. Clinton. We had a projected surplus over a decade, but no actual surplus. Budget gimmickry likely overstated the ten year total, too, since that assumes no disasters, wars, or recessions. Good luck living in that fantasy land. For actual Clinton debt numbers, consider the following: Yes, the deficit was almost eliminated in FY2000 (ending in September 2000 with a deficit of "only" $17.9 billion), but it never reached zero--let alone a positive surplus number. And Clinton's last budget proposal for FY2001, which ended in September 2001, generated a $133.29 billion de...