The Wall Street Journal, never the most left leaning paper in the country, has a very interesting article entitled "Expanding Bush Budgets Irk Conservatives." The gist of the article is pretty damning, specifically that Bush's assertion that "we've now cut the rate of growth in nonsecurity discretionary spending each year since I've been in office" is fairly misleading. Why? Because "such spending...amounts to one-sixth of a $2.5 trillion budget."
More on the flip:
But more important than all of that (and the article is WELL worth reading), is the following passage that hopefully puts the rise in our nation's debt in perspective:
"After declining from 1998 through 2003, payments to creditors here and abroad jumped a near-record 14.2% in 2005, CBO reported. They are now 8% of all spending - roughly half the size of all demestic discretionary spending, or MORE than the ENTIRE budgets of the Departments of Agriculture, Education, Energy, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Interior, Justice and Labor combined."