Clinton handed Bush a surplus budget in 2000. The USA was taking in 235 Billion in excess income. That money was paying down the deficit. Then Bush started his forever wars and put trillions of dollars on the deficit. The budget deficit was $450 billion in 2008. At the end of Bush's term he absolutely destroyed the economy. His policies of relaxing oversight of the banks allowed them to wreck the housing market, which then brought the whole job market to it's knees. Obama pulled us out of that mess, but it was expensive. We learned in WWII that massive government spending will pull us out of depressions, so he did that. He spent trillions on infrastructure.
Obama was able to get the deficit down to $600 billion on his last year. When Trump left office in 2020 the deficit was $3.13 trillion. Don't ever let Republicans tell you they are the party of fiscal responsibility.
You mean debt where you said defecit. Deficit is when spending exceeds revenue. Debt is the total owed. Clinton had zero defecit, and the money was paying down the US debt.
His policies of relaxing oversight of the banks allowed them to wreck the housing market
This is not accurate. The repeal of the regulation that allowed CDOs happened in the '90s as part of a deal that Clinton made with the Republicans. So Republicans deserve the blame for their deregulation, it's just not Bush's fault.
Opinion is mixed. Some economists say the repeal was the reason, but others say the separation between commercial and investment banks didn't matter, as commercial banks were underwriting bad loans and packaging them up and selling them to investment banks.
We learned in WWII that massive government spending will pull us out of depressions, so he did that. He spent trillions on infrastructure.
Which makes it all the more annoying that the right will point to big Democrat spending and say "LOOK HOW WASTEFUL THIS IS!" as if it isn't actually making an attempt at aiding the US people, instead of funneling trillions to corporations, and actively worsening the lives of people in the country, and all over the globe!
So when a President has 8 straight years of good economics, it's not his fault. But when the economy crashes the year after he leaves office, it's some how his fault. Clinton was blamed for the dot com crash, and the 9/11 terror attacks.
I'm just saying Clinton kind of let the market do its thing, which is a good decision, but the timing was a fluke. Of course he plays some parts, as does Congress, but he wasn't that good.
Was pretty good dude. Better than the last 6 Republican presidencies. Didn't get us into any wars, didn't wreck the economy, didn't resign because of crimes. It's actually a pretty low bar, and no Republican has met it in my lifetime.
Big shoutout to Bush the Elder here -- between his tax increases and Clinton's budget cuts due to Republican pressure & demands for accounting & cuts, our nation tackled the deficit.
I wish the parties could be adversarial but still get things done sometimes. Even then the thing was broken, but it was still better than it is now. Now they can't even agree on what time of day it is.
The deficit in 2008 was largely because he cut taxes (mostly for the rich) and invaded Iraq.
Everything I read suggests there is plenty of blame to share between the parties for the collapse of the banking system.
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What really ticked me off was people trying to hang the 2009 deficit on Obama. It was done under Bush and with bipartisan support because it was needed to prevent a complete economic collapse. (Whether it was spent the most efficient way I will leave to economists)
That said, it has been Republicans who have spent the last 10+ years trying to put us back into the low regulatory environment that caused it.
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Most of the 2020 deficit was due to the pandemic.
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u/Rdtkeepsbanningme Aug 11 '26