Bill Clinton never thought about balancing a budget until the Republicans won both houses of Congress and thus forced him to address the issue. It was the Republican Congress who proposed a plan to eliminate the deficit by 2002 back in 1994.

Clinton in 98, which was the first supposed balanced budget, was resisting it because their plan supposedly reduced the deficit too quickly. But he was all too willing to claim the proposals as his own, when he knew if he had it his way there would have never been a balanced budget. However, the Congressional Budget Office had predicted $200 billion dollar deficits throughout the 90's in 1995.

The bottom line is that the Democrats never have thought about reducing deficits of any kind, and probably haven't advocated spending cuts outside of military allocations since Truman was in office. They definitely haven't advocated tax cuts since JFK, except in targeted income areas.

In the primaries, every Democratic proposal would have busted the budget alot worse than anything currently, especially when it came to implementing their socialist health care reforms. When asked how were they going to pay for all of these programs all they could say is "by repealing the tax cuts". But even if you repealed the tax cuts today there would still be a deficit, so all you would be doing is making the debt grow even larger, and they would probably raise taxes on top of the repeal in order to claim minimal deficits. Gephardt's health plan by itself would have cost 2 trillion over 10 years and Dean's was 1 trillion. Kerry's health plan would have cost $750 billion, at least at least during the debates (and knowing his flip flopping ways he's probably against health care by now, and would vote against his own proposal. None of these guys except Lieberman had proposed comprehensive budget reduction plans, and even his included massive tax increases.

The fact is that they would bloat the budget even further. Plain and simple.
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"Is the world angry at Russia, which spends nothing on AIDS and rebuffed Kyoto? Is the world angry at China, which got a pass on Kyoto and spends nothing on AIDS for other countries?

Is the world angry at North Korea for killings its people? Angry at Iran for smothering that vibrant nation with corrupt and thuggish mullocracy? Angry at Syria for occupying Lebanon? Angry at Saudi Arabia for its denial of women's rights? Angry at Russia for corrupt elections? Is the world angry at China for threatening Taiwan, or angry at France for joining the Chinese in joint military exercises that threatened the island on the eve of an election? Is the world angry at Zimbabwe for stealing land and starving people? Is the world angry at Pakistan for selling nuclear secrets? Is the world angry at Libya for having an NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical weapons) program?

Is the world angry at the thugs of Fallujah?

Is the world angry at anyone besides America and Israel?" - James Lileks