John Spratt: “The Clinton administration, which inherited an economy just coming out of a recession and had to deal with the credit…”

“The Clinton administration, which inherited an economy just coming out of a recession and had to deal with the credit crunch and other problems that were dragging the economy then, nevertheless generated more than 10 million jobs during its first 4 years and more than 10 million jobs during its second 4 years. The first Bush administration was marred by a recession for the second half of it and had a poor performance. The Reagan administration had an adequate performance, but it did not come close to the performance of the Clinton administration. And what happened in the Clinton administration? This chart shows it. The gentleman is absolutely right. When he came to office, the deficit was at a record high: $290 billion and headed up. The President left his economic report on the desk for Mr. Clinton to pick up on January 20 when he came to office. On page 69 of that report, they showed that they expected the deficit to hover in the range of $300 billion or $330 billion for the next 5 years. The gentleman from Tennessee was here, I believe, and the gentleman recalls well what happened. The President sent down his budget on February 17. We passed it with one vote in the House and the Vice President's vote in the Senate, and for every year thereafter, the bottom line of the budget got better.”