Question

There seems to be a surge in national debt during the GW Bush and Obama administrations. Why is that?

Answer 1

President Obama is reportedly calling for "responsible" efforts to cut deficits in his State of the Union address tonight (while simultaneously calling for new federal spending). In view of the anticipated rhetorical nod to fiscal responsibility from the president, it is worth bearing in mind his deficit record to date. When President Obama took office two years ago, $10,626 trillion in national debt stood at that. It currently stands at $14.071 trillion, a remarkable $3.445 trillion rise in just 735 days (about $5 billion a day).

To put that in perspective, our national debt was $5,768 trillion when President George W. Bush took office. It had almost doubled by the time Bush left office, to $10.626 trillion. But Bush's record on deficit spending wasn't good at all: National debt increased by an average of $607 billion a year during his presidency.

In fairness, though, Obama can not reasonably be kept responsible for the 2009 budget that he did not sign (although he signed that year's $410 billion pork-laden omnibus spending bill, which is counted in Bush's column nonetheless). Therefore, Obama's record to date will be focused on real and expected expenditures in fiscal years 2010 and 2011 (plus the $265 billion component of the economic "stimulus" package that he introduced and signed, spent in 2009, while Bush's expenditures would be focused on 2002-09 (with the exception of the same $265 billion that was by no means part of the 2009 budget process).

Bush ran a gross deficit budget of $3,283 trillion. Obama would raise a total of $2,826 trillion in deficit spending in his first two fiscal years ($1,294 trillion in 2010, an additional $1,267 trillion in 2011 and the $265 billion of "stimulus" funds expended of 2009). So Bush has run up an average of $410 billion in deficit spending per year, while Obama is running up an average of $1.413 trillion in deficit spending per year or $1.003 trillion more than Bush per year.