Haven't we EVER had a surplus?

Baby Giraffe - My mom hates the guy that was President
when we had a surplus and I don't want to piss her off :-)

The Republicans are bleating on about the deficit and how we have to save our children's future.  And how the Democrats are going to ruin the country and blah blah blah.
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Really - if it weren't for their own bullcrap hypocrisy, I might listen to them.
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I mean for all their whining and late to the party the-deficit-is-EVIL-INC; everyone forgets that we actually HAD a surplus for a while.
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And one emotionally-impaired candidate wanted to keep it (put it in a "lock box").
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But the other candidate - who was far more personable - wanted to return it as a tax-cut.  And so we voted(ish) for the other candidate.  And we got a tax cut, 2 wars (kept off books) and an economic crash.  He was the Republican (a compassion conservative - remember).
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What was their economic advice during the wars?  Buckle down and pay for them?  No.  It was go spend money on credit cards and keep the economy humming.  And we gave it a hummer right off the cliff.
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And no Republican has ever said, "Whoops - we blew that call.  Let's go forward and fix it."
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Nope, now we have a huge deficit and it is somehow all the Democrats fault.  AND, the Republicans (in Charge of the White House and the Legislature when we pissed away the surplus) don't trust the Democrats even to work with them to solve it.
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So, no.  Not really.  I don't believe this is about anything but grandstanding and screwing with us all because you hate Democrats in general and this black President in particular.  And he didn't even screw around on his wife.
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And way back in 2000s, when Democrats complained about the deficit and said we need to keep the surplus, this guy said  - well let me just pull the whole discussion between Dick Cheney and Treasurer Secretary O'Neil.

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O'Neill said he tried to warn Vice President Dick Cheney that growing budget deficits-expected to top $500 billion this fiscal year alone-posed a threat to the economy. Cheney cut him off. "You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don't matter," he said, according to excerpts. Cheney continued: "We won the midterms (congressional elections). This is our due." A month later, Cheney told the Treasury secretary he was fired.