That is one way to look at it. But in reality, you could take any one of the expenses and say that it was "expense x" that pushed them over the amount of budgeted surplusses.
Bottom line is that the total actual expenses exceeded the actual revenues.... hence, the debt increased.
Side note: the surplusses still reduced the DEFICIT. Had revenues not come in at the levels they did, then the DEBT would have been increased by a larger deficit. ie... in 2000 the debt would have increased by MORE than 18 billion.
I think it is the difference between debt and deficit that people are getting confused on.
The debt is the cummulative amount of money our government owes. It is changed each year by a deficit (increase in debt) or a surplus (a decrease in debt). The deficit/surplus is determined by the ACTUAL results... not the budgeted expectations.
You are correct that public debt increased during the 1998-2000 time frame. However, there also were budget surpluses during that time frame and "debt held by the public" decreased. The ACTUAL results from those three fiscal years are budget surpluses, a decrease in "debt held by the public" and an increase in "public debt."