Reply #44: I would love to have seen Gore get a chance to use his lock box

[Psephos]

I'm with you in spirit all the way, but we do part company a bit on the facts.

First, as I mentioned in my original post, the Clinton surpluses were actually deficits once you account for the purloined trust funds. Not anywhere near as bad as the current deficits, of course, but deficits all the same.

The last real, true budget surplus run in this country was in 1969, under Nixon.

Second, while the absolute dollar figures of the current deficits are staggering, when viewed as a percentage of GDP (as economists do), they are not the worst ever; in fact, they are more-or-less in line with norms of the last 30 years. The sad thing is, they could have been a lot less. Thanks for nothing, *.

But the deficits that scare me are the ones yet to come.

We have to pay back all the money stolen/borrowed from the SS trust funds. There's a couple of trillion right there. Then we have to figure out how to fund Medicare. No one talks about it, yet it is more threatening than SS.

Peace.