After spending several weeks in the nation’s capital waiting for a chance to vote on a deal to raise the federal debt ceiling, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown is glad to be back in Ohio. Brown, the Democrat from Avon, a Cleveland suburb on Lake Erie, was in Cincinnati this week to visit with constituents in this part of the state and meet with the media.  

Back in January 2001, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) was estimating the nation was on course to have a negative net indebtedness beginning in 2006, partially due to various fiscal policies put into place by President Clinton. They included a tax increase on upper-income taxpayers that was approved during his first year in office, coupled with some spending cuts and increases in tax collections on items like capital gains that were sparked by the then-booming economy.