In early October the Treasury released a pre-election economic and fiscal update indicating that after 14 years in surplus the budget balance was set to slip into deficit.
So Mr Clinton, who claims to want a budget surplus in order to help Social Security, is actually using the Social Security surplus in order to help his budget look fine.
It highlighted the growth in the number of surplus places in schools, overspending on the special needs budget and the rising numbers of exclusions in the island's secondary schools.
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Whereas Bush couldn't name a single mistake -- not, say, letting Osama bin Laden escape from Tora Bora, or refusing to allow weapons inspectors to ascertain that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, or backing economic policies that took the greatest budget surplus in American history and turned it into the biggest deficit in history -- Obama has stepped up.
Though the vice-president has become more bountiful with his spending plans of late (in response to the rising budget surplus), in general his economic policy is every bit as cautious as his rhetoric is extravagant.
And all I'm asking is the folks like me and Mr. Romney go back to the rates that we paid under Bill Clinton. (Applause.) And if you remember, that was when the economy created nearly 23 million new jobs, the biggest budget surplus in history, and -- here's the kicker -- it was good for folks at the top, too.
The CBO predicted that, absent tax cuts or spending increases, the federal budget would remain in surplus throughout the decade.
The upshot was the change now being enshrined in the 2000 budget: driven by the sudden improvement in the forecasts, both parties committed themselves in the course of just a few months to keeping the non-Social Security part in surplus, as well as the total budget.
When America's Treasury stopped issuing 30-year bonds in October 2001, the optimists in government thought the federal budget was set for eternal surplus.
The contemplated tax cut would pay for itself before it took effect, and it would produce a huge budget surplus in the year that it was enacted.
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Unlike many of its developed peers, Australia's government plans to return to a budget surplus in the next fiscal year and forecasts its net debt to peak just below 10% of GDP, a fraction of the borrowings seen elsewhere.
Even so, his projections showed the current budget moving from deficit into surplus in 2009-10, allowing the rule to be met over the new economic cycle (see chart).
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And if you remember, that was when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs, the biggest budget surplus in history, and millionaires were doing pretty well.
Spending more money to protect Australia from another world recession would threaten the government's promise to return the budget to surplus in 2012-13, an injudicious boast on which much of its political capital hinges.
The next surprise is that, after years of profligacy, the euro area as a whole will have a budget surplus this year for the first time in at least half a century.
First, the projected average revenue level over the next ten years, 18.9 percent of GDP, remains well below the levels experienced the last five times the budget was in surplus.
Such people, land-rich but cash-poor, may now submit their credits to the state treasury for a full cash refund whenever the state budget is in surplus.
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Some of their oft-maligned reforms have come to fruition, ironically, under Mr Putin: helped by high oil prices, the economy is growing around 7% a year, the government budget is in surplus, inflation has been tamed and debt paid off.
In truth, this is just one quarter of the year, and the budget for the year as a whole is still likely to be in surplus.
The recent fall in private saving has been only partly offset by the government's budget surplus.
New Zealand also boasts an independent central bank committed to price stability and a government budget that has been in surplus for the past five years.
Specifically, I propose that we commit 60 percent of the budget surplus for the next 15 years to Social Security, investing a small portion in the private sector just as any private or state government pension would do.
Although the former Republican presidential candidate would say he and former President Bill Clinton cut deals that led to a record budget surplus and the biggest economic boom in modern American history, many say the Georgia Republican's ideologically unyielding, take-no-prisoners brand of leadership ushered in an era of heel-digging politics that persists to this day.
Even the unified budget was not expected to be in surplus until 2002.
On October 1st -- and I am counting the days we are going to have the first balanced budget and surplus we've had in 29 years.
In the year 2000, the government had a budget surplus.
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The government budget is running a small surplus, more money in than going out.
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According to Stephen Green, an economist at Standard Chartered, it has a budget surplus of 2% of GDP, if measured in the same way as in rich economies, and public-sector debt is a mere 16% of GDP.
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The politics involved in achieving any meaningful progress towards a budget surplus are above my pay grade.
Jack is the only budget director in history to preside over a budget surplus for three consecutive years.
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