"Our new strategy of fiscal discipline, investing in our people and expanding trade has helped to bring us the longest economic expansion in history that has given us a chance, along with continued fiscal discipline, to balance the budget, to turn decades of deficits into the biggest back-to-back surpluses in history," Clinton said.
Updated budget projections estimate the national debt this year at $3.2 trillion, one half of earlier estimates, Clinton said. That translates to 31 percent of the annual gross domestic product, down from 50 percent of the GDP when Clinton took office in 1993.
The Office of Management and Budget estimates a 10-year federal surplus at about $4.5 trillion, an increase over past 10-year projections of about of about $790 billion.
During the past three years, the administration paid down the national debt by $360 billion, and this year Clinton says he expects to pay an additional $237 billion, for a total of nearly $600 billion over the past four years.
The revised numbers come two weeks after the White House and congressional leaders reached an agreement on the 2001 appropriations package that included $130 billion in spending for a series of government agencies with $109 billion for education and health care programs, $6.5 billion for government schools, new teachers and funding for the Head Start program for young children.
The final package also included $30 billion in Medicare to restore money cut by Congress as a result of the 1997 balanced budget agreement. The bill also has a $25 billion package of tax incentives designed to encourage investment in low-income communities, including expanding government "empowerment zones."
Clinton stopped short of saying he was sending a message to President-elect Bush that he should continue what his administration considers conservative fiscal policies.
"Well, first, I don't think it's appropriate for me to comment on the specific decisions they will have to make, and that Congress will have to make. The real issue is, on the fiscal side, what is the revenue estimate, are you being conservative? We always were," Clinton said.
"And even these reflect, by the way, pretty conservative estimates, because you can always have a bad couple of years and it throws everything off."
Bush proposed a $1.3 trillion tax cut, which GOP analysts say would give the president-elect fiscal room to reform Social Security. The OMB places the Social Security surplus at nearly $2 trillion.
Bush adviser Charlie Black said Thursday that Clinton's policies were not the only way to get the debt paid, adding that at least four previous presidents implemented tax cuts that resulted in additional revenue for the country.
"Sure you can do it and hold the line on spending, particularly with Bush holding the veto pen. Clinton is the only president in history to veto a measure because it wasn't spending enough," Black said.
Still, some Republicans have hinted that Bush's tax plan may be too ambitious, and that he may want to consider a slower approach to achieving tax relief.
Copyright 2000 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.