Four; federal fiscal years 1998-2001, had a federal surplus, per OMB figures: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFSD
But, through that entire period (almost every quarter, and definitely every year) the federal debt still increased: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEBTN
So, not really a demonstrated playbook to reduce the debt.
OTOH, for a longer period in the 1990 (starting about 1995), in the last half of the long and strong 1990s expansion, the arguably more important debt: GDP ratio was going down. The 2010s might have seen something similar -- it had roughly, though more noisily than in the 1990s, plateaud before the Trump tax cuts, and might have dropped even with similar spending patterns without them.
But, yeah, the secret there is largely strong economic expansion, though you can still screw it up on the fiscal policy side.
I said we have a playbook to reduce the US debt. A more correct statement would have been "We already have a playbook to audit and reduce US government spending".
It is NOT done by giving one of the least competent ketamine junkies in front of a computer with a list of budget item names and tweeting the ones he finds most offensive.
Air that shit in congress where it can face PUBLIC scrutiny and debate, not in a forum literally controlled by the guy doing it. That's how we got rid of the unfortunate boondoggle SSC and kept the better ISS.
The fed reports a doubling of tax receipts from 1990 to 2000. There has been at least another doubling since then. Because Trump is a corrupt grifter and a shill for certain corps, he has already floated a plan to cut more taxes. Trump supporters do not want to bring taxes back up on companies apparently. They'd rather keep seeing their own taxes go up.
So they're going to cut stuff. Probably good stuff, probably important stuff. I'm saying there is a demonstrated productive way to cut stuff in the US system while limiting the pain and cutting of actually important stuff and that's what they would be doing if they actually wanted to fix any problem
Also I'm pretty sure the GAO has a standing list of things to do. That would also be better than this.
Uh, we didn't. Even in the “balanced budget” years 1998-2001, the debt increased.
Unless you mean reducing the debt to GDP ratio, which we did in parts of the 1990s, and some periods since, but that's not much explained by the spending control methods you discuss, but by growing the economy.