He was lucky enough to go 8 years without a single recession.
Originally Posted by lustylad
That is incorrect. The economic downturn with which Bush-Cheney had to deal began in March 2000 .... jobs were falling ... and October numbers reported (November report)
were the same reported for October in September (in the BLS) ... the Unions went ballistic because they were cooking the books in the BLS.
AFL-CIO reported the real employment numbers in December 2000.
Also ... when he was "authorized to spend" and didn't spend that is not a "surplus" .... those expenditures were pushed off until the new administration would take over .... two major areas ..actually 3, but two are sort of combined: air and border safety and military preparedness. Both those areas had to do with the safety and welfare of the U.S.citizens ...
Had the 1996 recommendations for securing aircraft been implemented it might have prevented 911 as it was planned and completed .... Gore was the chair of the special committee and submitted the report to Clinton.
Had military expenditures been made it would not have been necessary to "retrofit" vehicles with armor plating and "homemade" protection .. and there would have been fewer initial casualties in the 2013 actions. If you look at the transcript of the 911 commission report there were "excuses given" by the Clinton administration for not initiating an assault in Afghanistan ... or into Western Pakistan to disrupt Al Qaeda. It had to do with the inability of the U.S. military to respond (sound familiar?)
It was not "toward the end of his administration" ... there were hearings held in January 2001 regarding the status of the borders and the needs of ICE ... 100's of border agents were NOT HIRED AND NOT TRAINED .... as required of the administration. There were provisions in the air safety act that were not followed and regs were not implemented to require compliance. If we had a surplus we had "matching funds" to make it happen. 911 in one day cost us $50 billion ... and it has kept on growing.
The same shit is happening now ... listen to the reports of the condition of the U.S. military ... the current administration, including Clint II, have been pissing off money with bankrupt "green" companies while are military decays.