I have heard complaints from different people recently about how Bush has seemed to do nothing to balance the budget during his first four years. In some circles this has been used as an argument why that Republicans aren’t fiscally responsible. Most of the people I would be talking to are normally using this as support for the Constitution Party. Kerry also brought up the same types of arguments in one of the debates. He went so far as to claim that Clinton did balance the budget while Bush was so fiscally irresponsible that he could not do the same thing.

I did a little research on Kerry’s argument. I was in high school for about half of the 90s and didn’t pay much attention to the economic things that happened in governement. I found an interesting article from 1998 on the Cato Institute’s website explaining who really balanced the budget. The article, No, Bill Clinton Didn’t Balance the Budget, gives evidence to show that it was the Republican Congress and not Bill Clinton that balanced the budget.

While I have not been too happy with Bush and the Republican Congress with their handling of the budget, this gives me hope that they are capable of controlling their spending. Hopefully with the stronger majority that the Republicans now have in the House and the Senate, they will now accomplish a lot more in this area.