Sabo Takes Credit for Technology Boom

OK, so Sabo didn't take credit for it, but I found this statement to possibly be oversimplifying the economics of the late 90's boom. (emphasis mine)

Sabo said putting together the 1993 federal budget as House Budget Committee chairman was one of his proudest accomplishments because it helped spur the biggest economic expansion in history.

Source: MN Public Radio 3/18/06

To claim that the federal budget deal of 1993 "helped spur" the "biggest economic expansion in history" is silly. There are two things that helped spur that expansion, the explosion of the web and spending to prevent Y2K disasters. We all know about the explosion of the web, but many outside the IT and economic circles might not understand just how much the Y2K doomsday fears impacted the economy. In those years leading up to Y2K most IT departments were in a spending free for all because all you needed to do was put "Y2K" on the purchase order request and it was signed. As a result, some company put in whole new network infrastructures and large amounts of money were spent on new technology, not to mention the inflated salaries of programmers, project managers and consultants who were hired to defend companies from the disaster. These two events were minor, so we can understand how Sabo would fail to acknowledge or understand their impact though.