Below are the budgetary results for President Clinton's two terms in office: He had budget surpluses for fiscal years 1998–2001, the only such years from 1970 to 2023. Clinton's final four budgets were balanced budgets with surpluses, beginning with the 1997 budget. The ratio of debt held by the public to GDP, a primary measure of U.S. federal debt, fell from 47.8% in 1993 to 33.6% by 2000. Debt held by the public was actually paid down by $453 billion over the 1998-2001 periods, the only time this happened between 1970 and 2018. Federal spending fell from 20.7% GDP in 1993 to 17.6% GDP in 2000, below the historical average (1966 to 2015) of 20.2% GDP. Tax revenues rose steadily from 17.0% GDP in 1993 to 20.0% GDP in 2000, well above the historical average of 17.4% GDP. Defense spending fell from 4.3% GDP in 1993 to 2.9% GDP by 2000, as the U.S. enjoyed a "peace dividend" in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union. In dollar terms, defense spending fell from $292B in 1993 to $266B by 1996, then slowly rose to $295 billion by 2000. Non-defense discretionary spending fell from 3.6% GDP in 1993 to 3.2% GDP by 2000. In dollar terms, it grew from $248B in 1993 to $343B in 2000; robust economic growth still enabled the ratio to fall relative to GDP. These surpluses 1998-2001 were attributed to a strong economy generating high tax revenues, tax increases on upper-income taxpayers, spending restraint, and capital gains tax revenue from a stock market boom. This pattern of raising taxes and cutting spending (i.e., austerity) in an economic boom coincides precisely with the advice of John Maynard Keynes, who stated in 1937: "The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury." However, this remarkable success did not stop conservative pundits from trying to discredit this achievement. Their argument essentially goes like this: Although debt held by the public was reduced, the surplus funds paid into Social Security were used to pay those bondholders, in effect borrowing from one pocket (future Social Security program recipients) to pay down the other (current bondholders), such that total debt rose. However, while this is true, this is also how the proverbial "math works" for all the other modern Presidents as well. It is not accurate to discredit the exceptional fiscal austerity of the Clinton era