Some forget that we had surplus in 2000

BARBARA ANDERSON, like so many Republicans these days, suffers from amnesia that kicked in around 2008. In her July 23 op-ed on the debt ceiling crisis, she writes that after the mid-’90s, when the balanced budget amendment failed, “and . . . the public wasn’t looking,’’ the debt increased to the $14.3 trillion we have today. Who wasn’t looking? Does she forget that in 2000 we had a budget surplus? It took Republicans in power only six years to run up most of this debt. We were watching, and asking, but Vice President Dick Cheney told us not to worry. He said we can afford it.