Chart of the Week
 [ Home ] [ laffer quiz ] [ Archive ] [ 11/21/01: US Poverty Trends ] [ 12/05/01: ISU Tuition and Fees ] [ 12/12/01: Child Poverty ] [ 12/19/01: The Rise and Fall of Enron Corporation. ] [ 12/25/01 Merry Christmas! ] [ 1/1/02: Palm Beach County ] [ 1/8/02: State Math Scores and TV ] [ 1/15/02: Gun Deaths ] [ 1/22/02: Euro\Dollar ] [ 1/29/02: International Education ] [ 2/05/02: State Math Scores and Attitudes ] [ 2/12/02: Health Care Costs ] [ 2/19/02 Voter Turnout and Age ] [ 2/26/02: Money and Politics ] [ 3/03/02: The Rich Get... ] [ 3/10/02: Presidents and Deficits ] [ 3/17/02: Irish Smilling ] [ 3/24/02: US Air Pollution ] [ 3/31/02: US Immigration ] [ 4/7/02: Corporate Taxes ] [ 4/15/02: World Taxes ] [ 4/22/02: Causes of racial inequality ] [ 4/29/02: Gun ownership ] [ 5/6/02: Trust in government ] [ 5/13/02: Crooked Politicians ] [ 5/20/02: Racial Privacy Initiative ] [ 7/23/02: Gender and Athletics ] [ 9/6/02: Baseball Salaries ] [ 11/15/02: ISU Administrative Bloat ] [ 6/20/03 Minority Enrollment, Illinois Universities ] [ 12/2/03 Education Bureaucracy ] [ 2/2/04: A Deficit of Wisdom? ] [ 2/29/04: Iraq Casualities ] [ 7/19/04 Voter Turnout ] [ Poverty: Children and Elderly ] [ 5/30/06 GWBush job approval ] [ 1/1/8  Two Tax changes ] [ 1/11/08 The Surge ]
 

3/10/02: Red Republicans

Discussion:  Since Truman, Jimmy Carter was the only Democratic president  to see the budget deficit increase during his term of office; every Republican -- Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Bush II -- saw deficits increase during their presidencies.  Eisenhower was the last Republican president to reduce the budget deficit (although it went from surplus to deficit in his second term), The 2002-2004 budgets are estimates.  Almost every proposed deficit of the Reagan - Bush years was accompanied by similar forecasts of declining deficits -- the first Reagan budget (1982) estimated a surplus by 1985, the second (1983), by 1987.

Note: dates shown are for the last budget year of each 4-year presidential term. (e.g., the 2001 budget covers the fiscal year from Oct 1, 2000 to Sept 30, 2001).

Key Question: Do you remember Ronald Reagan saying something to the effect: "Mr. Carter, if you can't balance a budget, step aside, I CAN!"?

source: Historical Tables, Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2003  (table 1.1)