Sen. Marco Rubio’s trip to 1999  presents an opportunity to showcase a picture in the CQ Roll Call archives of Bill Clinton’s final budget blueprint, one forecasting massive surpluses and paying off all of the debt owned by the public by 2013 .  

Credit-card-financed wars, tax cuts, a Medicare prescription drug benefit, assorted spending and a couple of recessions later and the debt now tops $18.1 trillion. Action will be needed soon or else the government won’t be able to pay all of its bills because the nation is at the statutory debt limit.  

The debt held by the public, which in 2000 Clinton had projected would be eliminated by now, actually currently stands at $13.1 trillion, per the Treasury.  

Related:

Rubio’s Opening Speech Had a Goof


The 114th: CQ Roll Call’s Guide to the New Congress


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