Here are two recent quotes from former President Bill Clinton, on the campaign trail for his wife, Hillary Clinton:

First, MSNBC's Domenico Montanaro, quoting Bill Clinton on the campaign trail in Indiana: (emphasis added)

"Folks, it's always a mistake to bet against America. It was tough in 1968, and we came back. It was tough in 1992 and we wound up with the eight best years we've had in modern history."

Second, the Charlotte Observer's Mark Johnson writes about Clinton's campaigning in North Carolina, and reports this tidbit: (emphasis added)

"I left you a surplus," [former President] Clinton said in Dunn NC. "If they'd stayed with my budget, we'd have been out of debt in six or seven years."

For the record, total US public debt when Bill Clinton entered office in January 1993 (pdf file) was $4.167 trillion; in January 2001, when Clinton left office, total US public debt was $5.636 trillion.

In order for the US to have eliminated its public debt of $5.636 trillion in seven years, the country would have needed to run surpluses of about $800 billion per year during that time period. By way of comparison, during the last four years of the Clinton Administration there were four annual surpluses totaling about $560 billion (pdf file). The largest annual surplus during the Clinton Administration occurred in FY 2000, when that year's surplus was $236 billion, or less than 30% of the total needed for just one year of seven in order to satisfy Clinton's claim.

These two quotes beg the question: Can Bill Clinton leap tall buildings in a single bound?