The public debt plus Social Security obligations (since SS monies go right to the General Fund)went up during the last Clinton term because SS was bringing in more money since the economy was doing so well. Efforts to separate out the SS funds and keep them separate from the General Fund (remember the lockbox?) were killed by Congressional Republicans who didn’t want to face the new accounting.

The graph at the link above shows the ratio of National Debt to GDP.

The slope of the graph turns negative durring the Clinton administration. It does this because the denominator grew faster than the numerator. IE GDP grew faster (remember the tech buble) than national debt.

what it does not show is the dollar value of the national debt.

Decade over decade, the national debt has increased each decade since 1930.

There is some debate as to whether the total dollar debt actually decline in one year, 1998.

So he is here making pretend that a whole bunch of people whose livelihoods depend upon math won’t notice that he can’t present any alternate data.

I’d try to explain the graph to you, but it requires math and that would send you into screams of “talking points”.

Lizard you are a d-o-p-e.

also, only libs are mind readers so for the rest of us, when you mean dividends you need to type d-i-v-d-e-n-d-s.

The National Debt did shrink under Clinton and rose again after the BushCo tax cuts, the wars he didn’t pay for and Medicare Part D.

It is well past time that you people come to terms with the fact that the deficits and a decent part of the current debt being financed is due to structural deficits created by BushCo and cheered on by you morans as he was breaking the economy.

But 15% capital gains doesn’t help corporations think long-term either; one year is not that long to kite your company along until you can cash out.

except that the lower capital gaines rate only aplies to Long Term Gains, ie: investments held for more than a year.

“Bill Clinton lowered the deficit and the size of government. Most of what people think they know comes down to their party affiliation, not facts. ”

sentence 2 is proved in sentence one. The deficit shrank to zero and then the budget went into surplus. The National Debt did not shrink as the surplus did not exceed the interest load on the debt. And the Government grew each year by an amount greater than inflation + population growth. The total Fed Empolyee head count did go down, through shrinking the military and greater use of outsourcing.

EXACTLY.

Unfortunately Obama promised to leave the biggest Bush tax cuts for the rich mostly undisturbed:

Sen. Obama outlined a plan Thursday to raise tax rates on capital gains and dividend income from 15% to 20% for individuals and families making more than $200,000 and $250,000, respectively.

Sounds like a hefty increase, until you remember that before Bush, dividends were taxed as regular income with a top marginal rate of 39%.

The Bush dividend cut was especially pernicious since it fueled most of the short-term thinking on Wall Street.