Fact check: Gingrich on budget

Newt Gingrich overlooked a couple of years of red ink when he claimed Thursday night that he balanced the budget for four years as House speaker. He also glossed over the fact he was not the only leader in town back in those days. In the last debate before the leadoff Iowa Republican presidential caucuses, Gingrich persisted in repeating a claim he has made often in the campaign, sometimes more accurately than others. The latest version was particularly off the mark. Here's how his account compares with the facts:

"I balanced the budget for four straight years, paid off $405 billion in [the national] debt -- pretty conservative."

In the 1996 and 1997 budget years, the first two years he shaped as speaker of the House, the government actually ran deficits. It was only in fiscal 1998 and 1999 that the government ran surpluses. Although two more years of government surpluses followed, Gingrich left office in January 1999 and had no role in those budgets. The total surplus when he was speaker was $194.9 billion, not $405 billion.

Moreover, the national debt went up during the four years that Gingrich was speaker. In January 1995, when he became speaker, the gross national debt was $4.8 trillion. When he left four years later, it was $5.6 trillion, an increase of $800 billion.

To be sure, Gingrich did not single-handedly deepen America's debt, just as he didn't balance any budgets on his own. He didn't mention that the years of government surpluses were the result of policies that fostered an economic boom, many worked out with Democratic President Bill Clinton and figures in both houses of Congress. And Gingrich opposed a 1993 tax increase widely credited with helping to begin reducing the deficit.