How soon we forget. At the end of the Clinton years, government surpluses were treated as a frightening inevitability by Fed Chair, Alan Greenspan:

Mr. Greenspan said he was concerned that if the government did not begin to curtail its revenue, it would have more money than it needed when most of its debts were paid, leading to an accumulation of cash that he opposed. He said the government needed to start planning soon because there was $750 billion of debt that would not mature by 2011, so cash accumulation would begin by then, based on current projections, even though some of the debt would remain unpaid.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/26/news/26iht-fed.2.t_1.html

The Bush Administration figured out a couple different solutions to this problem.