America's Deficits: Some Historical Perspective

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Earlier we posted a chart showing historical trends in the U.S. budget over the last 50 years. Here, to go with it, is a chart showing America's surplus and deficit, year by year. As Cliff Kuang notes, the "balanced budget" is a rare thing indeed:

It's only happened in eight of the last 80 years. Virtually every politician talks about it. Only Clinton seems to have done it-and here, his administration was massively aided by the dotcom bubble, which artificially raised tax revenues for a brief period.

And we are running a pretty high deficit right now, for a slew of reasons that includes the Bush tax cuts, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the bailouts, and the stimuli.