I think it's safe to say that Clinton's tax increases played a part in balancing the budget, although it's worth repeating that we never really balanced the budget. We only made it look that way by seizing and spending the excess Social Security revenue and by neglecting to include some spending in the budget.
I believe you when you say they fudged the numbers but I'm also willing to make a guess that that Clinton's tax cuts in combination with other things reduced the rate at which the Debt actually increased.
You know what, I'm willing to make this bet.
That on a year by year basis (comparing the first, second, and so on years of the terms of the Presidents) that Clinton added less to the National Debt than did his predecessor or his successor.
As far as your words go here...
I think it's safe to say that Clinton's tax increases played a part in balancing the budget,
Damn right they did.
Regarding this...
It's also probably safe to say that had Bush not cut taxes, or perhaps had done a temporary tax cut after the 9/11 recession started, we'd have owed less when the crash happened, so we'd have more room to cut and could afford more spending to fight it.
The thing is in the past few conflicts/wars before ones we got into this century we have rarely if ever cut taxes while they were still going on.
I think there was one but that when the people in office saw that the military spending was increasing they then repealed that tax cut.
If I recall correctly President Bush's tax cuts came in two stages. One in early 2003 and another in 2004 or 2005 and they were passed by reconciliation meaning the filibuster couldn't stop it.
We're still paying a high price for those tax cuts that we would not be if those tax cuts hadn't been passed or had been allowed to expire on time.
That prompted me to make this post in another thread when someone made some remark about still blaming President Bush for the economy...
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=33931740&postcount=78
this chart is from the link directly above this sentence. look there for further detail.
Since those tax cuts are still in effect and the Republicans in Congress block the expiration of them, my position stated in
this post in the other thread will stand until they are allowed to expire.