Limbaugh falsely claimed "there never was a surplus" under Clinton
Describing the claim that "the Bush administration squandered this giant surplus left by the Clinton administration" as a "Democrat [sic] mantra talking point," nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh falsely asserted that "there never was a surplus" under President Clinton. In fact, from 1998 to 2001, the federal government ran total annual budget surpluses of between $69.2 billion and $236.2 billion, according to figures from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
From the September 12 broadcast of The Rush Limbaugh Show, in which Limbaugh responded to a clip of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) criticizing the Bush administration for not investing in flood-control projects in the Gulf Coast region despite taking over a large federal budget surplus from the Clinton administration:
LANDRIEU [clip]: Bill Clinton was running the largest deficit created by the Reagan administration before him and the Bush administration before him. President Bush was running a surplus. Yet, when he had a surplus, he didn't invest it in levees and flood protection for people from Miami to Orlando to New Orleans to Biloxi [Mississippi] or to Mobile [Alabama].
LIMBAUGH: This is sad. This is what [a previous caller] was talking about. But it's just patently sad that somebody with this limited amount of understanding and knowledge is actually in the U.S. Senate. The '90s were the greatest decade, uh, for economic activity in recent years, I thought. When was the peace dividend and all the surplus? The sur -- well, that came after, uh, the Soviet Union and the -- and the, uh, and the [Berlin] Wall fell. And the Clinton administration got rid of all those big deficits. This surplus that she's talking about, there never was a surplus. It was 10-year economic forecasts. But anybody with half a brain can tell you, folks, that two things are going to happen when a government report says there's a huge surplus in the, uh, in the out years: A) Government is going to suggest raising taxes, not cutting them; and B) They're gonna spend it. And this is precisely what happened. There never was a surplus. This is a Democrat [sic] mantra talking point about how the Bush administration squandered this giant surplus left by the Clinton administration.
But it's just patently sad that somebody with this limited amount of understanding and knowledge is actually given a microphone and a national audience to spread his ignorance every weekday.
Labeling Rush as "ignorant" would be too kind. If it was just ignorance, I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. Rush is just downright dishonest. He's too smart to believe the nonsense he spews every day.
Sorry but Rush did flunk out of Univ. of Mo @ Columbia. His bane, as should be obvious, was English Comp.
However, his listeners can not tell reality from fantasy.
Pass me that bowl of oxycontin please....
The sad thing is that almost no one who listens to Rush (except for people who read MediaMatters.org) will do any checking into the accuracy of his statements. They'll simply trust his assertions because they agree with his basic political position.
Most people are just too lazy to do any independent research (even as simply as a google search and reading a couple reputable web-pages). Overcoming this level of ignorance is the challenge facing our nation. We need people to make decisions (tax cuts or not) based on truthful data, not complete rhetoric like Rush puts out. It's hard to believe I ever listened to him and enjoyed him (I was so naive back then).
The hope of MMFA is that FINALLY these guys are being held accountable (at least at the cyberspace level). We've seen Limbo, O'Liar and their ilk react strongly to the this site, it must be having some effect. And even if in the back of their paid-off, tiny minds they have a smidgen of doubt about the spew (based on the knowledge that their rhetoric is being monitored) then it's a small ripple against the tide of corporation media.
The guilty parties eventually swallow themselves (and Limbo has much experience swallowing things...pills, marriages, words).
I'm sticking with my theory that it's the Pappy Finn Syndrome motivating these mostly white, mostly male listeners. In this case, they'd rather not know the truth than admit they've been left behind.
I read parts of Michael Medved's book in which he gives statistics as to Mr. Limbaugh's readership. He claims that over 30% are college educated. There are also a substantial number of Afro-American listeners according to the book, so I don't know how many are buying into his web of deceit.
The true measure of whether we had a surplus or not would be if the national debt decreased. We'd need to include any money owed to the Social Security Trust Fund in the calculations.
If you look at the third graph on this site [link to www.brillig.com] (2000 dollars), you can see that the debt went down in 2000 and 2001.
No matter now anyways because bush started a war with lies and blew everything we had saved and continues to put us in severe debt for nothing but greed for oil.
Sagra, the information on the referenced site is enlightening. It would be more complete if we could see how federal revenues have grown over the same period of time. The debt is too large, but there seems to be no drive from either of the major parties to do much to decrease it. Reagan cut taxes, revenues went up, but government being government spent all the revenues plus. Much of the "debt reduction" in 2000 and 2001, I believe, can be laid to increased revenues brought about by what Greenspan once referred to as "irrational exhuberance" (the dot com bubble). We need to demand fiscal responsibility from our government, when one adds the cost of wars (whether one opposes them or not), the cost of disasters like Katrina, the energy bill, the transportation bill, it is hard to see how we, as a nation, will ever climb out of the hole we are in. It would only take a period of hyper-inflation across the board (like the one in housing and energy right now) as in the late 70's/early 80's to really wipe us out. I would be for increased taxes, if our government at the same time would show us spending cuts that would make any increased revenue twice as effective. But as long as our representatives can "buy" our votes by "bringing home the pork", it will never happen.
Yes, this is absolutely true. Much of the early 'surplus' was actually not depleting the SS funding, but, as you point out, in the latter Clinton years, an actual surplus did occur.
I am ever amazed at the brazen lies these people will tell to prop up Puddinhead George. They apparently don't care if they're caught or not; the Republican faithful have demonstrated that they will believe whatever they're told to believe, as long as it's favorable to their world view. They haven't met a fact yet that can't be ignored.
You've got to realize that there's are core constituency of Bush supporters who will "follow him off a cliff" -- and this is the group Limbaugh preaches to.
Unbelievable! How many doctors did Rush see before he made this comment! By the way now that Bush has taken responsibilty for the Katrina mess, how are Fox and Rush and the rest of the Goebbels wing of the media going to spin this? I mean after all, it was the local officials fault. Right Rush and Brit??
Completely dishonest. No other way around it. Based purely on ideology. But what do you expect from people who will tell you with a straight face that Clinton was a "liberal", when in fact he was a moderate centrist. Of course, when you are so far out on the right fringe everyone who is not out there with you looks "liberal". These people live in a made up, on the spot, revisionist history world. Must be a fun place to exist, when things don't go the way you want, just make it up!
MMFA misleads again. There was a surplus, but only in two years. 1999 was 1.9 2000 was 86.3
The other years required the inclusion of social security revenue, which should not be include because that is borrowed money from the government point of view that has to be paid back in the future. So whoopee a whole 88 billion surplus over two years.
gavinsp - Tuesday September 13, 2005 03:39:33 PM EST
No, Limbaugh is misleading, there WAS a surpluss, Reagan and two Bushes wall to wall deficits
I agree that the story has a misleading aspect to it, and unnecessarily so, because the case that Limbaugh made a false claim can be presented without including the Social Security surplus. If MM includes the SS surplus, it should clarify in its story that it stating that it is including the Social Security surplus. MM should also state the surplus without the SS surplus.
MM could've gone one step further in order to be explicit. They did, however, note the surplus to be what they said it was "according to figures from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO)".
It sure beats Limbaugh's 'there's no surplus, because I said so' type rant.
I'm sure MM will be happy to update to include that.
Rush still lied.
MMFA misleads again. There was a surplus, but only in two years. 1999 was 1.9 2000 was 86.3
The other years required the inclusion of social security revenue, which should not be include because that is borrowed money from the government point of view that has to be paid back in the future. So whoopee a whole 88 billion surplus over two years.
by gavinsp - Tuesday September 13, 2005 03:39:33 PM EST
=================================================================
gavinsp,
Counter the big lie by mentioning the little white lie from the other side?
If we want to show the whole story, you need to start with Reagan who started massively ramping up yearly deficit spending. This trend continued under Bush Sr. The deficit was so large, that there was no way to bring it down quickly other than to massively increase taxes quickly and/or cut spending drastically. There would have been huge economic impacts to do that, so Clinton modified both on a reasonable schedule. Slowly bring up taxes to a level that would provide reasonable services while lowering spending over years so that programs could adjust to the cuts.
Look at the chart in another article ( [link to mediamatters.org] ), and you'll get a good idea of how this worked (replace poverty percentage with deficit spending...and set 12% as the 0% deficit line). Clinton turned a huge deficit spending plan into a surplus...took time, but he did do it.
Each year the IRS provides a simple "money in money out" pie chart in the instructions to form 1040. For fiscal year 1999, according to the IRS, there was a surplus of $124 billion which was used to pay down the national debt. See it for yourself at www.irs.gov. It's an interesting comparision, looking at FY 1999 and FY 2003.
This was an above-the-fold headline in the New York Times this morning. I had quite a doubletake until I realized they were talking about the rapid construction of federal emergency housing in the area near New Orleans.
Greg Shenaut
Depends on your accounting method.
pic and details
The first two methods on this website, which are the generally accepted methods do indicate a surplus. The third method, which is the increase in National Debt, does indicate that not much money went into paying down the National Debt in 2000 and 2001. It is not indicative of whether there was a surplus or not.
Secondly, the article suggests that Mr. Bush's economic policy is totally in error. It suggests reversing ALL of Mr. Bush's taxation policies. It also lists the third method of calculating the budget deficit at $661 billion, which is a startling figure.
Unfortunately, this post is another example of the ultra-right who try to use a counterexample as an example.
Here, is the verbatim conclusion of the author of this article:
"Although spending has increased in recent years, the main culprit for the large deficits is the drop in tax revenue, as a % of GDP, due to the Bush tax cuts. Obviously Mr. Greenspan’s comment that tax increases “pose significant risks to economic growth” ignores the history of the ‘90s. How do we fix the problem? Reverse most or all of the Bush tax cuts."
Therefore, one has to conclude that the submitter of this point actually agrees with the main point of MMFA's rebuttal: that the economic policy of the Clinton years was the correct approach to take.
My point also is to illustrate how the ultra-right also takes any example totally out of context and purports that it supports its delusional point of view.
Somebody please tell me; has this idiot ever told the truth? The whole truth? Is he capable of forming the words?
No, he flunked out of English Comp @ MU in Columbia. This is truly an accomplishment that requires mininimalist effort.
Regarding this lie, "...it was so obivious it was laughable. So, I laughed." Archie Goodwin from Nero Wolfe by Rex Stout.
Ok...this fat pig is back on drugs! This is proof the media protects the right! How could something SO absurd...not make the news?
The bottom line is Limbo was only hired to habitually lie for all the right wing-nut owned stations he spews his vomit from.
Someday....someday,...we will have a media that takes on these liars.
I dream of a day when CNN or MSNBC or CBS or ABC starts a little nugget of a program about 2 minutes long devoted to the lies of the reichwing media morons like Rush and Billboy.
Wonder how fast they would go under? I mean how could you combat the truth?
Oh yeah I forgot. Swift Boat Liars for Dumbya would come out in force. BOYCOTT THE NEWS FOR TELLING THE TRUTH! BOYCOTT THE NEWS FOR DARING TO ALTER OUR PERCEPTION OF REALITY WITH THE TRUTH!"