The debate over whether to increase the debt ceiling has included relentless assertions as to who is responsible for the nation’s debt having skyrocketed to its present state. The media has utterly failed in presenting the issue objectively. So here it is (pdf) from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office:
The Republicans have increased the national debt far more than Democrats in the last five administrations, including that of the sainted Ronald Reagan. If the Tea Party were to honestly observe the reality of the nation’s economic history they would all be voting Democratic. Unfortunately, the Tea Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the the Republican Party and Americans for Prosperity and is unlikely to alter their support for the GOP. However, that shouldn’t stop the press from accurately reporting the truth about the debt.
I see a bumper sticker…
I *want* this bumper sticker. Badly.
Newscorpse: I linked your blog regarding Rupert Murdoch and the Davos video to my blog. I just hope we can both colloborate and find news stories to continue to hound Murdoch.
It might help if you displayed your math. Conservatives don’t understand percentages and are just shouting “LIES!” on other sites that have reposted this. (This is a demonstration of one reason they want to gut the Department of Education – they don’t want people to understand how to do “advanced” math.)
Hard numbers you say? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms
I already posted a link in the article to a pdf from the Government Printing Office. The data is from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. What more do they want?
If they can’t click the link and see for themselves, they are never going to be convinced. They just don’t want to be. Or as you say, they don’t have the edumacation.
Your PDF does not give clear debt numbers. For years 2007 and beyond it uses estimates. Estimates are not needed for these years, the CBO has actual numbers. Use those . . . you’ll get different numbers for both Bush and Obama. Your graphic is quite flawed. And, just in case you want to call me on my “edumaction” . . . I’m a Chemistry PhD candidate at the University of South Carolina.
Fine. The numbers using the updated info make Bush’s debt worse (from 72% to 77%). The numbers for Obama using only actuals (through 2010) bring him up to 35%, which is still lower than any of the other presidents in the graphic.
Mark . . . consider Barack Obama hasn’t completed a single term as president. Consider GWB was in office 8 years. There is obviously no changing your liberal wing-nut view of the world . . . I don’t think many people visit News Corpse though . . . so I doubt you’re doing any substantial damage.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BUDGET-2012-TAB/xls/BUDGET-2012-TAB-7-1.xls
More accurate (current) table.
The numbers for 2007-2011 are based upon a 2008 budget projection. Why to people make up junk like this – it does nothing to contribute to public discussion but simply creates misinformation. Why would someone use data from four years ago? Unless they are explicitly trying to mislead people. It isn’t necessary to lie to make good points.
Shawn – thanks for the more accurate table.
This is exactly right. It’s worse than misleading though, it’s flat out lying. There is no way around that. Mark explicitly lied when he created this graphic.
Flat out lying? What what a load of BS. That chart I created was from a reputable source and was the most current I had at the time. And as I said above…..
The numbers using the updated info make Bush’s debt worse (from 72% to 77%). The numbers for Obama using only actuals (through 2010) bring him up to 35%, which is still lower than any of the other presidents in the graphic.
So your whole exercise in dishonest spin was a total waste of time.
Yes, we need this as a bumper sticker!
I think it would be better if we had a chart of which policies are responsible for increasing the national debt. Surprisingly they always don’t coincide with the government implementing them and the president in office.
You mean like this?
Once again Mark you show yourself to be a sub-par journalist. This graphic is also flawed, and you didn’t even make it! If you seriously followed politics you would know Barack Obama approved spending on the wars and approved an extension of the Bush Era tax cuts. Though he may not be the originator of these policies he certainly adopted them when he signed the 2009, 2010, & 2011 budgets. Adjust for those (among other less arguable concrete issues [such as Obamacare]) and this graphic changes too, just like Magic!
You’ve already proven your ineptitude in your comments above. You are simply compounding it here. Stick with Chemistry, because you are clearly don’t understand economics.
And Mark the only thing you’ve proven is that like the typical brain dead libtard, you run from FACTS like a vampire running from the dawn. Now go to the Treasury Direct GOVERNMENT website and go to the Debt To The Penny (Daily History/Search). Here I’ll give you the link to make it easy:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np
If you do the math you will quickly find that after only 2.5 years in office, Oblameah is a mere $444 billion away from topping the figure that it took Bush 8 years to achieve and Bush was a SHAMELESS spender. I hate to rain on your smug, know-it-all, deceitful liberal ‘whine’ parade but if there’s no excuse for how much Bush spent (and there is none) then Odumba is REALLY up excrement creek SANS paddle…and so are you. Unfortunately, the two of you common sense deprived idiots have the rest of us held hostage in your boat of loony, liberal silliness. In closing I advise you to take a closer look at your smarmy retort to Dave Tegeler and look in the mirror to see the REAL wing nut making up math rules that an illiterate could understand and LAUGH at. Love ya, brother, now…GROW UP!!!!!!!
Thanks for the link. I went there and calculated the numbers and they roughly confirm my previous calculations (Bush up 67%. Obama up 30%). Bear in mind that different agencies employ different benchmarks and methods, but the numbers are relatively close and still show Obama far less than his predecessors. Your math is simply delusional.
That said, I can’t take seriously a comment that includes such juvenile prattle as “libtard” and “Odumba.” Those are notorious signs of brain-damaged incoherence and TeaParty-itis.
I think the best way to explain the math folly of the Dems chart, is to consider 4 presidents each creating $1T deficit with no inflation.
Doing the math the way the Dems are doing it, you would get President #1 ending balance = $1T and that = 100% increase in deficit (If you divided by the ending balance of $1T)
President #2 = 50% because he also added $1T but now we are dividing by a total of $2T
President #3 = 33% because he also added $1T but now we are dividing by a total of $3T
President #4 = 25% because he also added $1T but now we are dividing by a total of $4T
Do you see the folly in quoting a Presidents contribution as a percent of the ending TOTAL balance of the deficit for his term? They are all equally bad yet President #4 looks like a hero.
Hence the chart is nothing more than an Math fraud for the unwarey Liberals who want to believe it.
Are you serious? That is just nonsense in the most literal use of the term.
The percentages were calculated using actual data and represent changes relative to the debt at start of each administration.
Boy, when the wingnuts aren’t blatantly lying they are making up new rules for math that a five year old would laugh at.
Dave, I understand your math. But…by the way you do the accounting, shouldn’t George W. Bush have an easier time at coming in with a LOWER percentage of relative debt than Bill Clinton? After all, according to how YOU figure it, if each President adds the SAME amount of debt, his relative contribution to the debt as a percentage of the overall debt will be LOWER. So what makes George W. Bush’s percentage SO VERY HIGH, so much HIGHER than Bill Clinton’s? Why, maybe it’s because George W. Bush did SO much more SPENDING and took in so much LESS revenue! G.W. Bush tried to pay for TWO foreign wars and the biggest single social spending program since Social Security (in Medicare Part D) with Tax Cuts! That was not Fiscal Conservation, but Fiscal Lunacy.
Also, Bill Clinton was in office TWICE as long a George Bush (the Elder), and yet his contribution to the relative debt after 8 years was LOWER than George Bush’s after 4. How is that a “trick of the light”?
Ronald Reagan actually ran on a campaign in 1980 that claimed the National Debt was DANGEROUSLY HIGH, when in reality it had been on a steady decline (when looked at relative to overall GDP) since WWII. That is UNTIL Reagan took over and decided to spend like a drunken sailor. Do you remember how much got invested in “Star Wars”? How has that Satellite Missile Shield been paying off for us? Oh right, it was just a Republican boondoggle, a vapor-defense system. Wasted money without dividends or infrastructure.
Bill Clinton actually had a year with a balanced budget WITH a surplus (the first in DECADES) that was PAYING DOWN the Debt his last year in office. What did George W. Bush do with that small surplus? Oh, he handed it back (and SO MUCH more) in the form of Tax Cuts that have primarily aided the wealthiest of Americans. What were those Tax Cuts supposed to buy us? Oh, that’s right, Economic Prosperity and Job Growth. And yet G.W. Bush gave us the most anemic Job Growth in generations and Economic Turmoil bordering on a collapse and depression as he left office!
Actually Russ, I’ve taken the “Real Data” for each Presidents term using the Math that mark developed and confirmed his numbers and Yes Bush is disproportionately low for for the excessive deficit spending under primarily his second term, just the way Obama is very very low. I have this on an excel spread sheet and have compared each president term (I broke 8 year terms into two pieces). I would like to upload the graphic because it is quite dramatic but I can’t.
I did Marks case dividing by the ending balance (most favorable to Obama) and dividing by the beginning balances and even just that change gives dramatically different graphic. I then laid those “stacked” bars against the actual Deficit “stacked bars”. What you see is that while Bush was aweful, Obama in 2.5 years was aweful on Steroids.
I have a graduate degree in Mechanical Engineering with a Minor in Mathematics. I have a very good textbook Liberal friend who gave me Mark’s chart to check out. He too is a Phd Physics with also a Math backgroud and he applauds my sleuthing of Mark’s bar chart as being correct and is embarassed that his side would make such a trivial and obvious miss-representation of what’s going on. to make matters worse, by breaking the Presidents terms, you also see the effect of bigger deficits every time a Democratic Congress is in power.
There is a reason why they call them “Tax and Spend Liberals” and “War Mongering, Granny under the bus” Conservatives. I like to think I live in the truth.
BTW, if you don’t believe me take the actual deficits at the end of each 4 year term and build a stacked bar chart using that data – and lay it against Mark’s chart you will see what I’m talking about
Yes, please. Check the numbers for yourselves. You will see that my calculations are correct and the naysayers who come here to disseminate their disinformation are lying or ignorant.
I always find it rather humorous when commenters try to pump themselves up by describing their academic achievements, as if we could verify any of it (by the way, did I mention that I’m an astrophysicist and recently completed Einstein’s unfinished Unified Theory?). It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to calculate the percentages that the debt increased from one year to another. Anyone who does the math themselves will see that I’m correct and that Dave’s ludicrous methodology (as I noted above) is his way of wasting our time.
I recalculated using a different data source. I chose data from the US Treasury about Total Public Debt, from 1/21/1993 to 7/26/2011. I used inauguratation dates of January 21st for debt period data. I used the only concrete source I could find for Reagan. I interpolated for Bush Senior. Please point out any errors with credible references.
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np
I would be happy to supply a PowerPoint Bar Chart/Histogram.
% Increase Over Previous Total Public Debt, by Presidential Administration
Reagan, 1981-1989
188%
$0.712-2.052 trillion
Bush Senior, 1989-1993
103%
$2.05-4.17 trillion (interpolation)
Clinton, 1993-2001
37%
$4.17-5.73 trillion
G.W. Bush, 2001-2009
86%
$5.73-10.63 trillion
97.6% (adjusted for legislative increases that brought the debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion)
$5.73-11.3 trillion
Obama, 2009-2011
35%
$10.63-14.3 trillion
27% (adjusted for G.W. Bush legislative increases to $11.3 trillion)
$11.3-14.3 trillion
Bush Administration Increases:
Debt ceiling raised by congressional resolution 5 times
72%
$5.7-9.85 trillion
Debt ceiling raised by legislative act 2 times
97%
$5.73-11.3 trillion
Housing & Economic Recovery Act (2008) raised debt ceiling to $10.62 trillion
Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (2008) raised debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion
The national debt ceiling was raised from $5.7 trillion to $9.85 trillion during the George W. Bush presidency — a 71.9% increase in the national debt. As part of the bailout package, the Bush Administration included legislative wording that would allow the debt ceiling to be raised to $11.3 trillion after his presidency ended — a 97.6% increase over $5.7 trillion. The Bush Administration was responsible for ushering in $11.3 trillion of our current $14.3 trillion national debt ceiling.
Two key congressional leaders always voted in favor of raising the debt ceiling during the Bush Administration. They were John Boehner (R-OH) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
Government spending was not cut. Taxes were cut for the wealthy. And Republicans controlled Congress from 1994 to 2006 (Senate and House of Representatives).
Additional Data:
% Increase Over Previous Total Public Debt, by Presidential Administration
Reagan, 1981-1989
188%
$0.712-2.052 trillion
Bush Senior, 1989-1993
103%
$2.05-4.17 trillion (interpolation)
Clinton, 1993-2001
37%
$4.17-5.73 trillion
G.W. Bush, 2001-2009
86%
$5.73-10.63 trillion
97.6% (adjusted for legislative increases that brought the debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion)
$5.73-11.3 trillion
Obama, 2009-2011
35%
$10.63-14.3 trillion
27% (adjusted for G.W. Bush legislative increases to $11.3 trillion)
$11.3-14.3 trillion
Bush Administration Increases:
Debt ceiling raised by congressional resolution 5 times
72%
$5.7-9.85 trillion
Debt ceiling raised by legislative act 2 times
97%
$5.73-11.3 trillion
Housing & Economic Recovery Act (2008) raised debt ceiling to $10.62 trillion
Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (2008) raised debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion
Thanks for all your work. I can’t wait to see the silly debunking that Dave will attempt.
It is a waste of time to debate convoluted statistical manipulations used to distort the obvious.
These are simple calculations. Subtract Total Public Debt at the beginning of an administration from Total Public Debt at the conclusion of an administration. Take the remainder and divide by the Total Public Debt at the beginning of the administration. Enough said.
There is no point in arguing over how accrately you guys can calculate percentages of an accumulating total to try to A to B comparisons of debt performance – the whole point I was making is that is a Mathematical Folly for the purpose you intend. If you insist on using percentages then you need to calculate each president’s performance as a percent of the GDP at the beginning or end of each 4 year term and Build that Bar Chart.
Maybe you are afraid of the truth or simply can’t handle it.
Or maybe some of the geniuses on here ought help the great Messiah come up with a budget without raising our taxes -his leadership skills or lack thereof are beginning to show even to the Lame Stream Media.
More absurdity. Factor in the impact of the Bush “Great Recession” on US productivity/GDP during Obama’s 2.5 years as president?
Perhaps you should compare the percent government revenue intake vs. percent government spending by administration.
Republicans controlled Congress from 1994-2006 and the White House from 2000-2008. It should be self evident who is to blame for the current state of our economy. Democratic spending, bovine manure.
BTW interest charged on the Public Debt is calculated based on the total accrued debt. When will debt ceiling increases be needed just to pay the interest? What percent of the Total Public Debt, and therefore interest, is attributable to Republican Administrations?
Then there is the inflationary adjustment for the actual increase in Reagan’s Total Public Debt relative to Obama’s Total Public Debt.
We could go round and round for eternity. Spin, spin, spin … distract and divert.
Of course, the average income has declined for the middle class ($30,000-65,000 income)and increased for the top 1%. But this is of no concern to Tea Drinkers — gotta maintain that return on your investment.
Check out Forbes — you know that capitalist magazine:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/29/irs-high-income-personal-finance-taxes_0129_wealthy_americans.html
BTW I am neither Democrat, Republican nor ultra-conservative Tea Drinker. Neither Republicans nor Democrats represent the majority — roughly 35% of the voters are Republican, 35% Democrat and 30% independent (i.e. no party affiliation). As such, 65% of the voters are not truly represented by the seated government because the winning party, Republican or Democrat, always believes it has a mandate for its partisan ideology.
Don’t bother to respond Dave. I have heard enough conservative rhetoric to last me a lifetime.
However, the blame is to be shared equally by both parties.
Based on the data I presented, from 1/20/1981 to 7/26/2011, Republican Administrations have been responsible for 66.5% of all new public debt ($9.035 trillion divided by $13.588 trillion). This is before adjusting for inflation.
The data I have presented demonstrated that Total Public Debt is cumulative and that Republican Administrations have been responsible for 66.5% of all new Total Public Debt since 1/20/1981 ($9.035 trillion divided by $13.588 trillion).
Current GDP (end of 2nd quarter 2011) = $13.27 trillion
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-30/economy-in-u-s-vulnerable-to-relapse-with-gdp-short-of-pre-recession-peak.html
From 1/20/1981 to 7/26/2011:
Total Public Debt attributable to Republicans = 66.5%
Total Public Debt attributable to Democrats = 33.5%
As a percentage since 1/21/1981, the Total Public Debt to GDP ratio for Republicans vs Democrats:
Republicans — $9.0 trillion divided by $13.27 trillion = 67.8%
Democrats — $4.59 trillion divided by $13.27 trillion = 34.6%