I would give Clinton credit for the economic boom of the 90's in a heart beat if he actually did anything that directly led to the economic boom. He didn't. He just had the good fortune of being President during the tech boom, and while the housing bubble that burst in 2008 was starting to gather steam. He does get some of the credit, or blame rather, for the housing bubble - but look where that got us. Meanwhile, he had nothing whatsoever to do with the tech bubble. Originally Posted by SinsOfTheFleshThe "alleged" ... errr... "tech boom" was a bubble based on "funny money" from "funny" highly over-inflated paper. It paralleled the "pharmaceutical bubble." Brokerage firms were hyping "techs" and "pharmaceuticals" during that time with brokers encouraging "small" investors to buy, while placing sell orders for their "large" investors to SELL. That's not the first time brokers have pulled that stunt.
The economic downturn began in the Spring of 2000 by most any accounts, which the Clinton administration attempted to mask in the ramp up to the Fall General Election. Example: The BLS reported the September 2000 job numbers for the October 2000 report. Even over the Christmas 2000 holidays Clinton went ballistic publicly when Dick Cheney commented their first job was to address the economic problems facing the country with the recession. (Gore was still litigating the election results).
The "alleged surplus" was a failure to fund and pay authorizations by Congress. Example: If I don't pay my monthly household bills in April, I have a "surplus" in my household expense account in during April. Two critical areas (or perhaps 3) were "reviewed" by a subcommittee in the early (January) part of 2001: Border security, military readiness, and domestic law enforcement (Federal, state, and local). Here is a "PERFECT" EXAMPLE:
http://fas.org/irp/threat/212fin~1.html
White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security FINAL REPORT
TO PRESIDENT CLINTON (Chaired by Al Gore)... and
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP...11/lkl.00.html
Aired September 11, 2001 - 21:00 ET
"KING: Senator Kerry did your -- did you committee on international opertions and terrorism ever actually fear something like this?
"SEN. JOHN KERRY (R), MASSACHUSETTS: Absolutely. Absolutely.....
"We have always known this could happen. We've warned about it. We've talked about it. I regret to say, as -- I served on the Intelligence Committee up until last year. I can remember after the bombings of the embassies, after TWA 800, we went through this flurry of activity, talking about it, but not really doing hard work of responding."
The SAD REALITY is that JOHN KERRY is the "point man" for the Iranian bullshit, too!