Posted by
Bert Chapman on Wednesday, January 25, 2012 7:24:28 PM
During his recent surge in GOP presidential primary polls Newt Gingrich has claimed that he was responsible for four federal budget surpluses during his two terms as House Speaker. The truth is otherwise. The budget deficit begin declining in Fiscal Year 1992 (October 1, 1991-September 30, 1992) and the following
figures from the Office of Management and Budget (as contained in the Census Bureau's annual Statistical Abstract of the United States) show the federal budget remained in deficit until Fiscal Year 1998 when it achieved a surplus of $69.3 billion. In fact, this surplus increased after Gingrich resigned and was replaced as Speaker by Dennis Hastert with the surplus being $125.6 billion in Fiscal Year 1999, $236.2 billion in Fiscal Year 2000, and $128.2 billion in Fiscal Year 2001, before increased defense and non-defense spending after the 9/11 terrorist attacks brought us into a federal budget deficit again.
The House Speaker's role in the budget process can vary but the Republican legislators who deserve most credit for budget surpluses during this time were Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico and Rep. John Kasich of Ohio who chaired the House and Senate Budget Committees during much of this time. Naturally, this is extremely inconvenient to Gingrich's narrative that he was solely responsible for the fatuous claim that he produced the governmental budget surplus we enjoyed from FY 1998-2001.