Today we reached another historic landmark in our fiscal turnaround. For the first time in 70 years, the U.S. Treasury Department completed a debt buyback. This buyback of debt is a striking reminder of the extraordinary progress we have made in putting America's fiscal house in order. In the last 7 years, we moved from the largest deficit in history to the largest surplus in history.
America is now on track to pay down nearly $300 billion in debt by the end of this year and to be debt-free by 2013. In this new era of surpluses, these debt buybacks will help us continue to pay down the debt, save money for American taxpayers, and lift the burden of interest payments off our children and grandchildren.
William J. Clinton, Statement on Debt Reduction Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/227373