Senator Reed took the tough votes in the 1990s to help balance the national budget and create record surpluses.

These same Republicans turned a record surplus into a record deficit.

Prudent fiscal management, the mayor said, has allowed his administration to cut taxes while still generating record surpluses.

What are the policies that drove us from record surpluses to record deficits?

During the economic downturn after 1997, there was a growing fiscal deficit (and, in 2007/08 a record surplus).

"We inherited a $5 billion deficit, and then later there were record surpluses," he said.

South Korea's previous monthly record surplus was $1.12 billion last September.

The budget problems stick out even more because of the county's economic prosperity, which in other municipalities has translated into record surpluses.

Over the last couple years it has shed three million jobs and gone from record surpluses to record deficits.

Two years later, Rice announced that the deficit had been eliminated and the university was holding a record surplus of over $14.5 million.