Hey, don’t worry about it. Phil Hare says that danger from a rapidly-increasing national debt is just a myth. Look how well Greece is doing!
New numbers posted today on the Treasury Department website show the National Debt has increased by more than $3 trillion since President Obama took office.
The National Debt stood at $10.626 trillion the day Mr. Obama was inaugurated. The Bureau of Public Debt reported today that the National Debt had hit an all time high of $13.665 trillion.
Barack Obama likes to blame George Bush for America’s economic woes:
Mr. Obama frequently lays blame for soaring federal deficits on his predecessor.
“By the time I got into office we already had a $1.3 trillion deficit and we had exploded the national debt,” he said last month during one of his backyard chats with Americans.
But, as CBS points out, Obama has already added 60% of the debt in two years that Bush added in eight, and Obama is on track to add a trillion dollars more in his first term than Bush did in two:
The Debt increased $4.9 trillion during President Bush’s two terms. The Administration has projected the National Debt will soar in Mr. Obama’s fourth year in office to nearly $16.5-trillion in 2012. That’s more than 100 percent of the value of the nation’s economy and $5.9-trillion above what it was his first day on the job.
As we have pointed out repeatedly, the proper measure would be which party controls Congress. Presidents propose and sign budgets, but Congress actually creates them. Using that as a guide, let’s take a walk through a couple of scenarios to see which party owns more of the national debt. First, let’s break down the last 10 years of the Bush/Obama era by control of Congress, starting on January 1, 2001. The starting point for the national debt was $5.662 trillion. On January 6, 2007, when Democrats took over, Republicans in total control had added $3.011 trillion in debt in six years, just slightly less than Obama has added since taking office less than two years ago. Since taking control of Congress less than four years ago, Democrats have added $4.992 trillion to the national debt.
Perhaps it would be more fair to look at the entirety of Republican control of the House, which lasted 12 years and bridged the Clinton and Bush administrations. In that entire span, Republican budgets added $3.873 trillion to the national debt. That is not only far below what Democrats have added in just one-third of the time, it’s also far below the Obama administration’s own projections of how much they will add to the national debt in just one term.
We can also do the same calculations by fiscal year, from October 1 to September 30 each year, matching the budgets. Using that guide, we find the following scenarios:
- Republicans in control for 12 years: Added $4.034 trillion (avg $336.17 billion per year)
- Republicans in control during Bush era: Added $3.201 trillion (avg $533.5 billion per year)
- Democrats in control of Congress during Bush/Obama era: Added $4.603 trillion (avg 1.48 trillion per year)
Clearly, while Republicans have been somewhat irresponsible in running up debt, Democrats have managed to be almost three times worse than Republicans. Just as clearly, they have no intention to cut spending to correct this, but instead plan to hike taxes to fund their spending spree. And they’re being led by a President who wants to spend even more, as his own budget projections show.
