The final numbers are in on President Bush's last budget for fiscal year ending 9/30/09. It showed another record federal deficit, this time to the tune of $1.42 trillion. Like Reagan and Bush 41 before him the President failed to balance the budget during his term in office. No Republican President has balanced the federal budget since Dwight Eisenhower in 1960. One would never believe that if you listen to the rhetoric coming from the conservatives in the news media or the Republican party. Below is the fiscal record of President Bush and the previous administration of President Clinton.
Fiscal Years Ending 9/30/
President Clinton
1994 $203.2 billion Deficit
1995 164.0 billion Deficit
1996 107.4 billion Deficit
1997 21.9 billion Deficit
1998 69.3 billion Surplus
1999 125.6 billion Surplus
2000 236.0 billion Surplus
2001 128.0 billion Surplus
Total Budget Surplus $62.8 billion
President George W. Bush
2002 $157.8 billion Deficit
2003 377.6 billion Deficit
2004 412.7 billion Deficit
2005 318.3 billion Deficit
2006 248.2 billion Deficit
2007 160.7 billion Deficit
2008 454.8 billion Deficit
2009 1.42 Trillion Deficit
Total Budget Deficits $3.53 Trillion
President Bush's final budget that ended 9/30/09 was sent to Congress on July 28, 2008 and contained a projected deficit of $482 billion. That was before the economic meltdown and the financial collapse. His budget message at the time contained the following information. "The nations economy has continued to expand and remains fundamentally resilient." One should remember at the same time the economy had lost jobs every month since December 2007. The administration was completly out of touch with the economic facts.
Part of the deficit problem that made it swell to $1.42 trillion was the $700 billion Bush asked Congress to pass to bail out the financial industry, plus federal revenue was down 16.6% from fiscal 2008. Also there was approximately $200 billion from Obama's $787 billion spent of the stimulus money. However, without the expenditures for the bail out and stimulus the budget deficit would still have been another record number around $600 billion plus.
When the above budget numbers are compared for Bush and Clinton one can see the tragic results of Bush's 8 years in office and the tremendous burden the American people are left with fiscally and economically and the challenge that falls to President Obama. President Clinton had a deficit reduction and economic plan and policy when he took office and the Democratic controlled Congress passed that plan in 1993 without one vote from the Republicans in Congress. They predicted doom and gloom but the opposite happened. Bush had no economic or fiscal policy to keep the budget in balance when he took office. Instead he continued the policy of trickle down economics which proved once again not to be a policy at all to deal with the economy and the nations fiscal health.
Clinton's policy reduced the budget deficit every year his first term in office and was in surplus every year his second term in office. The Clinton administration also paid down $453 billion on the public debt. The Bush administration paid down zero and added over $6 trillion to the national debt. Bush never got a hand on deficit spending because he lacked the fundamental knowledge of how to create a sound economy and how to use government policy wisely. The ideology of trickle down economics being the engine for growing the economy and jobs in the private sector is a fairy tale. There were over 22.7 million new jobs created during the Clinton administration and 91% came from the private sector. The highest in over 50 years. Clinton did it with an economic policy that created an even 11 million plus jobs in each of his terms. Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 talked, but it was Clinton who performed. In fact try this on for size. More new jobs were created under Clinton in 8 years than were created under Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 in the 20 years they served. Their trickle down economics never got past the wealthy to the private sector.
When President Bush took office the governments fiscal health had never been better. In 8 years he managed to take the country and its people to the cleaners and it started in his very first year. If this is the conservatism that Republicans like to brag about, lets hope we never see another Republican President.
Coming next: Federal Spending: Facts vs. Myth. Stay tuned.
Note l: The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were handled outside the budget by the Bush administration. The cost of those wars are now handled within the budget by the Obama administration.
Note 2: National Debt number taken from Treasury Department.
Note 3: To read more why a policy of trickle down economics is not a policy at all read my three part series with conclusion titled: The U.S. Economy: Which Part Performs Best, dated 1/27/08/
Note 4: Budget Surplus and Deficits shown above taken from Congressional Budget Office Records.
