Budget Video

This is a one-minute clip illustrating the factors contributing to the U.S. federal budget.



President Clinton achieved surpluses of $1.9 billion in fiscal 1999 and $86.4 billion in fiscal 2000.

In his first major address to Congress, Bush promised that his budget would pay off the national debt in ten years:

My budget has funded a responsible increase in our ongoing operations. It has funded our Nation’s important priorities. It has protected Social Security and Medicare. And our surpluses are big enough that there is still money left over.

Many of you have talked about the need to pay down our national debt. I listened, and I agree. We owe it to our children and our grandchildren to act now, and I hope you will join me to pay down $2 trillion in debt during the next 10 years. At the end of those 10 years, we will have paid down all the debt that is available to retire. That is more debt repaid more quickly than has ever been repaid by any nation at any time in history.

 Well, not quite.