Prof.Potbar Wrote:
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> Memories fade Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > You realize that Clinton LOWER capital gains
> taxes
> > right? And the windfall from THAT during the
> dot
> > com boom was the reason for the (not really)
> > budget surplus right? Until the bubble burst
> and
> > the market crashed and all went *poof* leaving
> the
> > spending at a higher level without the revenue.
>
> LOL! The world's worst historian has spoken!
> Capital gains tax cuts were added to the middle
> class tax cut package of 1997 as the price that
> ever-blackmailing Republicans demanded for the few
> votes Clinton needed to pass the important stuff.
> The expansion had meanwhile long been underway,
> and so had the so-called dot-com boom which is is
> still sailing right along, by the way. And the
> budget surpluses in FY 1998-2001 were entirely
> real. $363 billion of debt held by the public was
> bought down using those supluses. Unfortunately,
> a crisis of confidence in the newly appointed guy
> was driven by idiotic tax cuts for the rich into a
> shallow recession. It took the tragic events of
> 9/11 to give us something more important to worry
> about, but Bush's economic policies were an
> absolute disaster from start to finish.
> Republicans just can't do economics. At least not
> this latterday bunch of losers.
BS. The debt did not go down. All that was done was to shuffle excess off-budget money between public and trust fund debt in an accounting transfer. The real total debt increased each and every year as anyone can see by looking at Treasury's own data:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm
The primary source of excess revenues were in fact primarily from the capital gains windfall as can be seen in IRS' revenue source data when it jumped from 9% to 12% accounting for virtually all of the difference claimed as surplus.