Blame Bush.....

[billky]

Please do. Every person who gets up to speak needs to blame Bush. There is nothing wrong with it. After all, it is the truth. Think about that, the truth!

[melvinmartinez]

1. Money quote

Martinez Report: "As a point of reference; U.S. debt grew 86 percent under the W. Bush administration. It grew a proportionally diminished 35 percent under the current administration, according to the Treasury Department."

[progree]

7. What I see at Treasury site - more $ debt increase under Obama than G.W. Bush

# On Edit 739p ET - a couple of older numbers updated. National debt is up 50% during Obama admin.
# On Edit 802p ET - "7/15/12" changed to "9/3/12" in the table. (The rest of the numbers are the same, just forgot to update the date itself, sigh)

# Factoid - The national debt during the Bush II administration increased from 5,728 B$ to 10,627 B$, an increase of 4,899 B$. The debt during the Obama administration has increased from 10,627 B$ to 15,991 B$, an increase of 5,364 B$ (up 50%) -- a larger dollar increase in 3 1/2 years than in Bush's 8 years.

# URL: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np
# Reagan nearly tripled the debt (2.87 X)
# Bush I increased the debt by 56% (1.56 X)
# Bush II nearly doubled the debt (1.86 X)
# The 2 Bushes together increased the national debt 1.56 * 1.86 = 2.89 X
# The last 3 Republican presidents (Reagan and the two Bushes) increased the national debt by 2.87 * 1.56 * 1.86 = 8.3 times, yes they more than octupled the national debt in their combined 20 years of office.
# Clinton only increased it 37% (1.37 X)
# Secret information: Under Obama the national debt increased 50% in his 3 1/2 years of office. You might see claims that he increased the national debt by 75% or that he nearly doubled it -- if so, they are talking about the "debt held by the public" which is one of two components of the national debt. The other component is the Intragovernmental Debt: what one part of the federal government owes to another part of the government -- mostly the Social Security and the Medicare trust funds.

[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.07em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"] National Debt in Billions of Dollars
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.07em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"]
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.07em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"] Public IntraGov Total
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.07em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"]1/20/2009 6,307 4,320 10,627 Obama inaugurated
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.07em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"] 9/03/12 11,214 4,777 15,991 Present
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.07em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"]
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.07em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"]% Increase 78% 11% 50%

[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.07em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"]Public: debt held by the public. Intragov - Intragovernmental debt

# Factoid number two is when comparing the debt to GDP version of different countries to each other, economists don't usually include intragovernmental debt {citation needed}. So when some rightie says that we are almost at a 100% debt to GDP ratio -- approaching that of some of the in-trouble European countries, point out that the equivalent debt for comparison is the Publicly held debt: 11,033 B$. The latest GDP number (2012 Q2) as of 9/3/12 is 15,606 B$ (http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdpnewsrelease.htm). Thus the debt to GDP ratio on this basis is: 11,214 / 15,606 = 72%.
See the back of The Economist magazine where they compare Debt / GDP ratio of several countries (and many other statistics). I can't find those numbers at the Economist site online (I didn't look real hard) but I found a graph at http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/01/daily-chart-8
as I read the graph for the U.S. it is 80%, so I'll have some figuring out to do (why it's not around the 71% I calculated above).

# Factoid (this is a repeat of the first paragraph) - The national debt during the Bush II administration increased from 5,728 B$ to 10,627 B$, an increase of 4,899 B$. The debt during the Obama administration has increased from 10,627 B$ to 15,991 B$, an increase of 5,364 B$ (up 50%) -- a larger dollar increase in 3 1/2 years than in Bush's 8 years.

However, under Bush, the accumulation of debt was totally unnecessary -- the last 4 years under his predecessor (Clinton) were all years of budgetary surplus. Bush quickly returned us to budget deficits and debt accumulation via massive tax cuts, 2 wars (one based on lies about weapons of mass destruction), and the Medicare Part D drug benefit -- all of which were totally unpaid for (unlike Obamacare which the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office -- the official arbiter of the fiscal cost of legislation -- scores as creating a slight 10-year surplus through cuts elsewhere and to a wide assortment of fees and taxes). Whereas the debt increase under Obama was to stop the plunging economy he inherited (4.3 million jobs lost in the last 10 months of the Bush admimistration),

[frazzled]

2. This image says it succinctly

[NewYorkers]

3. I Agree

it was george bush who started the $700 billion bailouts.

[zbdent]

4. Remember, Bush's bailout of the banks was with no strings attached

(read: regulations).

Obama's LOAN to the auto industry has to be paid back. He didn't give ANYBODY a blank check like Bush.

[Raven]

5. Good try but the $ paid out under Obama has

been paid back with interest...not so with the Bush bailout...and I thought you guys were the businesspeople.

[Cha]

8. They make it their business to

sink the US economy.

[Herlong]

6. Think about that, the truth! This is what happened when George Bush was president.

What happened when George Bush was president? Is what a person dealing in a real world should say. Forget psychiatry, remember the past, present and future.

[salin]

9. No. After 4 years, that falls flat. Instead -

link the policies that lead to this deep debt and failing economy to the policies that Romney and the GOP are proposing. They want to go BACK to further deflating our economy. In the intervening years the economy has limped, but it stopped imploding and starting slowly growing - despite GOP fighting every effort the President has attempted to improve the underlying economic conditions.

To just say it is Bush's fault! Is incorrect, and ineffective. However pointing out that the national economies implosion happened during and towards the end of 8 years of Bush - and that the current R&R team is proposing to continue (or worse, accelerate) the very economic policies that led to the economic collapse is both accurate (per the synergy between Bush policies and Romney/Ryan proposals) and effective. At least in my opinion - ymmv.

[HopeHoops]

10. I do.