"Clinton presided over eight years of properity and relative peace, and left a large surplus in the US Treasury..."

This is one of the greatest hoaxes in US history. The closest Clinton came to spending less than the government took in was in 2000 and we still added 22 billion to the National Debt that fiscal year. The National Debt has not gone down for at least 40 years. Had it not been for a conservative shift in Congress in 1994, Clinton would have run debts in the 235 billion range since that is what his first budget propoasls called for.