To be fair, $5.806T and $2.558T are unadjusted dollars, but I don't think that detracts too much from your point. This is the danger of a carte blanche spending issue such as the War on "Terror."

The sad thing is that Clinton, the super-liberal President, left him with a balanced budget.

IIRC Reagan doubled the national debt in five or six years? Republicans suck.

I should probably qualify that to say that lots of Republicans are perfectly nice people, and no insult is intended to any Republicans who may read this site, but STOP VOTING FOR THOSE PEOPLE OK? They're not effective managers.

It's silly to say stuff like "In 4-1/2 years, Bush has added almost half again of what it took two and a quarter centuries to accumulate." Look instead at the percentage growth rate, which by those figures is less than 50%.

To put this figure in context, we would then want to know:

(1) On a percentage basis, how much has the debt increased under past presidents?

(2) What has percentage GDP growth been under Bush, and how does his debt-growth-to-GDP-growth ratio compare to that of past Presidents? In short, is our ability to service the debt growing in parallel with it?

I don't know the answers to (1) and (2) offhand, but I'll bet they yield a less shocking assessment than one gets by acting as though national spending in George Washington's day, even adjusted for inflation, was in any way comparable to that in the modern era.

No, and this a particular hobbyhorse of mine. GDP is not the proper denominator. The federal budget is the proper denominator. Otherwise it's like saying that Sears can operate at a loss every year, just so long as the mall as a whole is making money.

Also, in addition to comparing debt growth to GDP growth, it's also helpful to look at debt as a a percentage of GDP. In other words, the country may not have had as much debt under past presidents, but it also didn't have as much income.

Debt isn't a bad thing, if you can afford to service it. Or don't you believe in paying for a house with a mortgage?

Whoops, cross-posted there with your reply.

Debt in and of itself isn't a problem. I have a mortgage. What I don't do is take out a new mortgage every year without paying anything but interest on the previous ones.

Now that I've calmed down a little, the point that I think damns Bush is the sudden change from big surpluses to big deficits.

Otherwise it's like saying that Sears can operate at a loss every year, just so long as the mall as a whole is making money.

No, and that's where the concept of growth rates come in. You can operate at a loss for many, many years, if not indefinitely, so long as your losses are getting smaller — in other words, if your income is growing faster than your debt. The budget deficit won't tell you that.

But even so, the deficit, after growing from 2002-2003, has since been shrinking, and is on track to turn into a budget surplus sometime in late 2008.

Just because it set records in 2002 and 2003, doesn't mean that the #3 and #4 deficits of all time in the past two years are an accomplishment.

on track to turn into a budget surplus sometime in late 2008

You and I both know that is based on completely unrealistic assumptions, including the expiration of the tax cuts that Bush is trying to make permanent and totally unspecified spending cuts.

the concept of growth rates come in

Agreed, but the necessary growth isn't in GDP; it's in federal receipts. And those haven't been growing as quickly as the debt.

True. What matters is the acceleration of the deficit; i.e., the rate of change of its growth. In other words, even if the deficit is still growing, we're okay if it isn't growing as quickly as it was before.

To illustate this for anyone who's interested, I whipped up a handy model in Excel with charts and everything, which you can download and play around with here.

As long as receipts are growing faster than spending, we're OK. And that has actually been the case since 2003.

What matters is the acceleration of the deficit

Not that simple, though. If you have a massive spike that settles down into something that is merely enormous (in historical terms), that isn't making progress. It's just starting your X axis too late, thereby making it look like it's shrinking, when the toverall trend is still sharply up.

Gotta run an errand, will be away from the computer for a bit.

apostropher, the OMB clearly is not responsible for the huge growth in spending or tax cuts; those are the President's and the Congress's choices. What the OMB gets credit for is the ability to SPIN and obfuscate things - would you suppose that this talent and expertaise are the reasons for Bolten's promotion?

those are the President's and the Congress's choices

Well, yes. That's entirely true.

This Bolten guy can't be all that bad.

Why should I change my name? He's the one who sucks!

This is interesting... a look at mandatory vs. discretionary gov't spending:

"We're approaching a point where we could eliminate most discretionary spending and still fail to balance the budget."

America's national debt is insane
In the last 25 years America has gone from the world's largest creditor nation to the world's largest debtor nation with total debt of $40 trillion, or $136,479 per man, woman and child.
66% ($27 trillion) of this debt was created since 1990, a period primarily driven by debt instead of by productive activity.
Last year's total debt of $40.1 Trillion was 9 times higher than the $4.6 Trillion debt in 1957 (both measured in inflation-adjusted 2004 dollars).
Last year's total debt increased $3 trillion (up 8.2%). Federal government debt (incl. added debt owed trust funds) increased $595 billion (8.5%), household debt increased $1.03 Trillion (up 11.2%), business debt increased $421 billion (6%), state & local government debt increased $116 billion (up 7.4%), domestic financial sector debt increased $714 billion (7.3%), and other foreign debt was up 10%.
Last year's total debt per person was $136,479 (up $7,900 over last year's $128,560); this compares to $27,084 in 1957 (both measured in inflation-adjusted 2004 dollars). That's a debt excess of $109,395 per man, woman and child.

When President Bush took office in 2000, the projected surplus for the U.S. government for the next decade was approximately $5 trillion. By fiscal year 2005 the surplus was entirely gone and the annual domestic deficits were at record levels, somewhere in the range of $350-450 billion depending on whose estimates you use. This is the most radical reversal of government finances in U.S. history. Today the national debt is approximately $8.3 trillion, and growing by over a billion dollars per day

Funding for your social services are being reduced, to in some cases, third-world standard.
Your education facilities for the general population are at best, poor.
You have the highest rates of imprisonment (often the result of poverty) in the world.
You're government is $8.3 trillion in debt and people are going to soup kitchens because they can't get work.
War criminals are stealing America's soul and lining their pockets from a useless war that has cost $250 billion so far and reliable predictions place the total figure at above $1 Trillion.
Anyone who blithely brushes these problems off is a political ideologue or a fool.

Billmon 4/2

The potential interaction between the end-times electorate, inept pursuit of Persian Gulf oil, Washington's multiple deceptions and the financial crisis that could follow a substantial liquidation by foreign holders of U.S. bonds is the stuff of nightmares.
Kevin Phillips
How the GOP Became God's Own Party
April 2, 2006

When politics and religion travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. The movement becomes headlong -- faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thought of obstacles and forget that a precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's too late.
Frank Herbert
Dune
1965