The Three Most Interesting Numbers in President Trump’s First Budget

Jon Government

Before diving into the more interesting numbers contained within President Trump’s first official budget proposal, let’s ask a budget history trivia question: When was the last time that any US President proposed a budget for the US government that would be balanced at any time within the next 10 years of it being proposed?
If you guessed President George W. Bush in 2007, you’re right!
Now, if you were to ask when the last time that a US President proposed and delivered a balanced budget, you would have to go back to the turn of the century in 2000, where President William J. Clinton’s final budget proposal for the federal government’s 2001 fiscal year produced a budget surplus.
It’s important to consider these two dates because it has been nearly 10 years since a US President even proposed a budget that would reduce the government’s annual spending deficit to zero within a ten year period, and it has been four whole presidential terms since a US President’s budget delivered a surplus to the US Treasury.

This post was published at FinancialSense on 05/30/2017.