Enough with the propaganda graphics. Please.<p>Political theory and hundreds of years of tradition holds that the legislature, not the President, is solely responsible for spending. That's why we have legislatures. That's their job -- to exert popular control over taxes and spending.<p>It's also a fact that the people you currently elect are responsible for the spending and policies that go on today. If new guys couldn't change policies and spending, then why have elections at all?<p>Please. Enough of this already. You want me to sign a letter saying your guy is awesome? Happy to do it. Just please cease and desist the posturing.
Why aren't the wars mentioned under Obama as well? He actively chose to continue fighting both of them, spending huge amounts of money. Sure, he didn't start them but he's had plenty of opportunities to stop them and he hasn't.<p>It's clear that most of the blame is to G. W. Bush. But neglecting to mention that Obama is fighting two wars seriously irks me.
"President Obama asserted[1]: '[T]he deficit was on track to top $1 trillion the year I took office.'<p>This is seriously mistaken.<p>The Congressional Budget Office's projections from January of 2008, the last ones made before it recognized the housing bubble and the implications of its collapse, showed a deficit of just $198 billion for 2009, the year President Obama took office. In other words, the deficit was absolutely not 'on track to top $1 trillion.'"[2]<p>----<p>[1]: <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/07/25/obamas-address-to-the-nation-on-debt-talks/" rel="nofollow">http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/07/25/obamas-address-to-t...</a><p>[2]: <a href="http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/president-obama-doesnt-understand-the-origins-of-the-deficit" rel="nofollow">http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/president...</a>
No article on the US debt is going to be neutral.<p>Someone posted an interesting video the other day: <a href="http://www.kpcb.com/usainc/" rel="nofollow">http://www.kpcb.com/usainc/</a><p>The Heritage Foundation has a different take on it:
<a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2011/07/28/the-truth-about-obamas-budget-deficits-in-pictures/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.heritage.org/2011/07/28/the-truth-about-obamas-b...</a><p>Which shows that Obama is more to blame than Bush.<p>Situation is normal as each side is blaming the other side.<p>John Mauldin has a book called Endgame, which is worth reading through Interlibrary loan. It presents some interesting ideas.<p>Think we need a new super post that just allows everyone to post articles on who's responsible for the US debt underneath.
Does this graph take interest into account?<p>For instance, if the deficit was one trillion dollars at the end of President Smith's administration and two trillion dollars at the end of President Jones' administration eight years later, how is the blame apportioned between Smith and Jones? A large fraction of Jones' deficit is due to the fact that he's stuck paying the interest incurred under President Smith. So a fifty-fifty assignment of blame is wrong. On the other hand, we can hardly absolve President Jones for his failure to pay off the debts incurred by President Smith, either.<p>Of course, as DanielBMarkham has said, the whole idea of blaming presidents for deficits is rather silly, when it's really congress that writes the budgets. (Not that presidents can be absolved of blame either...)
I know i'm making a glib comment on an extremely complicated issue, but i really wish i could just raise my own credit limit over and over again in order to keep a good credit rating.
<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/infographics/us-national-debt" rel="nofollow">http://www.whitehouse.gov/infographics/us-national-debt</a> provides an interesting alternate take. Rather than chart by when the debt arrived, it charts by which policies caused the debt.
So on May16 there were extraordinary measures to inject funds into the budget.<p>What extraordinary measures were taken to ensure that the budget would be closer to being balanced going forward?<p>It seems like there is a never ending solution of debt limit increases going back decades. I suppose things need to get broken very badly before the drastic changes that are needed can be made. Until the general public feels real consequences that are directly attributable to this spend more mentality, nothing is likely to change.
Excellent visual. I've not seen this explained as clearly in any other news source. It seems so simple to do; I chalk it up the kind of lazy Journalism we have today.