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Regarding heated debate blow over national debt

Posted: Mar 7, 2010

I would like to lend a little perspective to the great debate below regarding national debt under Obama and Bush.

By October 2008, due to increases in domestic and foreign spending, the national debt had risen to $11.3 trillion, an increase of over 100% from the start of the year 2000 when the debt was $5.6 trillion. This is an averge rise of 12.5% per year.

The debt was $12.3 on Feb 5, 2010 which would roughly represent one year under the Obama administration. That would be a rise of $1 trillion, or an 8% rise, not 300% as suggested in the post below or on right-wing propaganda websites. Fact folks. These little squabbles can be cleared up so easily with just a few plane-Jane, run-of-the-mill facts.

http://www.sbscpagroup.com/blog/debt-nation-post-two/

http://web.archive.org/web/20070628072448/http://www.cbo.gov/budget/historical.pdf

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/sep/02/spending-and-the-national-debt/

http://useconomy.about.com/od/fiscalpolicy/p/US_Debt.htm

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-12-30-debt_N.htm

http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/truth-be-told/2010/feb/5/national-debt-dizzying-amount-zeros/

;

Thank you for your awesome post! I know that - the vast majority of what

[ In Reply To ..]
O has spent has been to try and bring us back from the Bush years. Great post-thanks!

On closer examination, however....Obama has doubled the debt in 1 short year! - Anon

[ In Reply To ..]
From your same source:

"The total debt has increased over $500 billion each year since FY 2003, with increases of $1 trillion in FY2008 and $1.9 trillion in FY2009."

And wasn't Congress led by Democrats in 2008/2009? Remember, they're in charge of spending in America.

No dear. When speaking in terms of total debt - the original post is accurate...

[ In Reply To ..]
The total debt is not $1 trillion. That was the amount of INCREASE for 2008. In order to double the debt (as W did between 2000 and 2008), the rate of increase has to equal 100%. That is figured by dividing the amount of increase for the year in question by the amount of the total debt at the beginning of the given year.

The total debt for at the end of 2008 (in October) was $11.3 trillion. The total debt in Feb 2010 was $12.3 trillion. From October 2008 to Feb 2010 (which you will notice is 14 months, not 12), the debt increased by $1.0 trillion. Divide $1.0 trillion by $11.3, and the result is a rate of increase equal to 8.8% (a more exact figure than I gave in the original post...I had dropped the 0.8% component), or 4.5% less than the average yearly rate of debt increase under W.

$12.3 trillion is not twice the amount of $11.3 trillion.

Accordingly, the rate of increase in the debt between 2007 and 2008 was 4.6%. Between 2007 and Feb 2010 (14-month period) the rate of increase was 8.8%. This is roughly double the RATE of increase, NOT double the total debt.

The timing of this increase coincides with the onset of the recession. The major contributing factors were the decline in tax receipts $320 billion due to effects of the recession, another $100 billion in tax CUTS for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), $245 billion for the Troubled Asset Relief fund (TARP) and other bailout efforts; $100 billion in additional spending for ARRA; and another $185 billion due to increases in primary budget categories such as Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, Social Security, and Defense.

You will notice that the bulk of the increase is directly attributable to the onset and deepening of the recession.

Now, the logic of your subject line, blaming Obama for increases that happened BEFORE he took office (FY2008) is, again, misleading at best. Yes, Congress is responsible for spending. Yes, the recession began during a time that the dems held the majority. However, the conditions leading up to the recession are NOT entirely a function of a democratic-majority Congress as you would like to suggest. That issue would be the subject of a new thread, and one I do not feel up to addressing with you.

BTW, I will assert here that economic indicators point toward realtime stabilization and gradual recovery in the economy. Dire circumstances reqiured drastic measures to turn the economic devastation around. Personally, I think they could have done more and that it could have been done more wisely. You can pontificate till the cows come home about who is and isn't at fault. I prefer to leave that up to the individuals who read these posts and to the voters when they cast their ballots.

You're conflating discussions of 2010 debt with projections - of increases to come under Obama policies.

[ In Reply To ..]
And that, I heartily promise you, is NOT a discussion you want to jump into.

I do not follow. I confined my information to hard data - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
I agree with you. I don't DO projections. The figures I gave represented fiscal years under W and the totals for the first year under O. In reality, those figures actually represented a time span of Oct 2008 to Feb 2010, trying to examine O's first complete year in office for the sake of comparison. I now realize that the 14-month reference in the previous posts is inaccurate and, in fact, I examined a 16-month span since Obama's figures commenced from the beginning of the 2009 fiscal year...October 2008.

It may well be that there was info in some of the citations that examined projections, but I tried to limit myself to verifiable data. Did I overlook something?

Only that he/she will never admit that Obama - is not a villian. nm

[ In Reply To ..]
nm

See "Plenty of blame" above. - Says it all in a few succinct words. nm

[ In Reply To ..]
x

I agree. Plenty of blame to go around, and - while I may not agree with

[ In Reply To ..]
everything Obama has done, he is not a villian or inherently evil. Just tired of hearing nothing but "Obama is stupid" which is clearly totally incorrect-Harvard Law Review? Come on! Or Obama is trying to destroy our country, as if any President would set out to destroy the country deliberately. I would not even accuse Bush of that, and I think he managed to come the closest yet. He is a good, intelligent although not perfect person, just like everyone else doing his best in the really, really lousy situation he largely inherited.

He is not stupid. - So what are the other possibilities?

[ In Reply To ..]
Oddly enough, the people who support Obama should wish that his problem is that he's stupid.

He's not stupid, but unfortunately the alternatives to stupidity in terms of explaining his behavior in office are far worse, and much more worrisome.

People. Facts and figures are not about blame. - They are at the core of truth. Got it?

[ In Reply To ..]
Nobody has to admit anything when confronted cold hard facts. When compared to Bush, Obama's effect on the deficit has been fairly minor up as of February 2010. Numbrs don't lie. It's all there in black and white. What part of this are you not getting?

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