Kappa, have you ever heard the line "The President proposes, the Congress disposes"?
In other words, the President proposes a budget but it is the Congress that actually approves any spending (or reduction in spending) and disbures the money. Correct?
You say Clinton "paid down the debt", right?
During the Clinton years, which Party controlled Congress?
During the Clinton years, it wasn't until '98 that there was a surplus and that was the result of the '97 agreement between Clinton and Congress a on federal budget plan to eliminate the deficit in five years.
Yet looking at the stats, you can see the deficit continued to increase, albeit slowly, despite the plan.
09/30/2000 $5,674,178,209,886.86
09/30/1999 5,656,270,901,615.43
09/30/1998 5,526,193,008,897.62
09/30/1997 5,413,146,011,397.34
Politicians spend money. They spend YOUR money, not theirs. It's what they do, it's their raison d'etre, it's why they seek the job.
I'm certainly not going to defend the current overboard spending spree, but I'm pretty sure folks realized the federal budget plan to eliminate the deficit in five years went down the tubes on 9/11.
The Iraq war sure isn't helping either. I haven't decided on whether it was justified as yet. I'm giving them ~5 months to find the WMD.. the actual WMD... that they said were there.
But the reality of the situation is that we're "at war". I'm not sure you can find a balanced budget or even limited/reduced federal spending during any major war in the Republic's history.
Note I'm not discussing the cause for war or justification, etc.
Just the fact that wars historically cost lots of money.
