It’s Time for a Budget Surplus Again

Just to put this into perspective, our national debt stands at about $14 trillion. According to the national debt clock on brillingTo put this simply, the federal government spends more money than it takes in. That’s called a deficit. When you do this year after year, it creates a large amount of national debt. Did you know that since about 1970, we’ve run federal deficits every year except 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001? The politicians in Washington sure like spending our money.The federal government also has what’s called debt ceiling. The Congress votes on and sets a national debt ceiling, the total amount of money the federal government can go into debt. In recent years, this debt ceiling gets raised almost every year. Sometimes more than once per year. Last year, the democratically controlled Congress raised the debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion, a political decision to push the next increase after the 2010 elections. We are expected to reach this ceiling within the next month or two.The CBO (Congressional Budget Office) recently reported that we are likely to set a new record this year with almost a $1.5 trillion federal deficit. Studying our federal deficits over the last 25 years, it’s been clear that we’ve run through several groups in control of Congress with various fiscal priorities.Fiscal Conservatives In 1994, Newt Gingrich lead the Republican Revolution, and voters elected fiscal conservatives into Congress, taking control of both the House and the Senate for the first time in many years.Keep in mind that by the time the new Congress was in place in January, 1995, the budget was already in place for the ’95 fiscal year from the ’94 Congress.So what happened with deficits during the time that fiscal conservatives controlled Congress? They became surpluses for the first time since 1969.Fiscal Moderates By 2000, moderates and wedding gowns liberals had made significant gains into Congress. While the House and Senate were still controlled by Republicans, they were now controlled by moderate Republicans instead of fiscal conservatives. These moderate Republicans controlled Congress be small margins through 2006. And by 2002, we returned to budget wedding dresses deficits instead of budget surpluses.It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few years. Fiscal conservatives now have control over the House, but Democrats continue to control the Senate and the White House.Do you want to know what President Obama had to say about our increasing national debt? He designer wedding dresses called it a “sign of leadership failure”. But at the time, he was Senator Obama, and the year was 2006. And Senator Barrack Obama voted against raising the debt ceiling. Back then the national debt was only inexpensive wedding dresses about $8 trillion. Since then, our national debt has increase by about 75%. That was only five years ago.On this one, I agree with Barrack Obama completely. Our current level of national debt is certainly a failure of leadership.Author Bio: Lee Eldridge is a writer, musician and marketing consultant with more than 20 years experience in customized promotional items. Lee writes for several blogs, and has launched a new site focusing on Wedding Coasters and Drink Coasters.Don't forget to read out related articles given at the bottom of this page