GW Bush grew the National Debt by over $4 Trillion dollars -- and THAT was WITHOUT including the Debts incurred for things like Wars and Bailouts and Hurricane recovery.
Bush Administration Adds $4 Trillion To National Debt
Couric & Co. -- Sep 29, 2008
by Mark Knoller is a White House Correspondent for CBS News.
(AP) With no fanfare and little notice, the national debt has grown by more than $4 trillion during George W. Bush's presidency.
It's the biggest increase under any president in U.S history.
On the day President Bush took office, the national debt stood at $5.727 trillion. The latest number from the Treasury Department shows the national debt now stands at more than $9.849 trillion. That's a 71.9 percent increase on Mr. Bush's watch.
[...]
Buried deep in the hundred pages of bailout legislation is a provision that would raise the statutory ceiling on the national debt to $11.315 trillion. It'll be the 7th time the debt limit has been raised during this administration. In fact it was just two months ago, on July 30, that President Bush signed the Housing and Economic Recovery Act, which contained a provision raising the debt ceiling to $10.615 trillion.
A 72% Increase in the National Debt occurred under Bush's watch.
Occurred with the votes of the GOP Deficit Hawks underwriting the Bush-Cheney IOUs -- and those same congressional geniuses are now squawking about how raising the Debt Ceiling, amounts to ending America as we know it.
Yeah right, where were they the last 10 years?
You'd think with all the Media coverage the National Debt Ceiling has been receiving, that it was some sort of sex scandal or something.
2000+ stories and counting this year. Funny the same weighty Topic hardly got an "honorable mention" by the Media, the last 6 times, it raised the roof ...
The Media's "Debt" Overload
by Eric Boehlert, mediamatters -- June 08, 2011
Through just the first five months of 2011, there have been nearly 2,000 U.S. newspaper articles or columns that mention "debt ceiling," while on television, for example, CNN has aired 230 segments that have mentioned the topic. That, according to a "federal" "debt ceiling" search on Nexis.
By comparison, for the entire year of 2008, there were only 136 newspaper mentions and just 22 CNN hits. And that’s how the issue, prior to this year, was generally covered:
-- 2008: 136 newspaper, 22 CNN
-- 2007: 91 newspaper, 4 CNN
-- 2006: 286 newspaper, 11 CNN
-- 2004: 276 newspaper, 21 CNN
-- 2003: 222 newspaper, 5 CNN
-- 2002: 309 newspaper, 15 CNN
It's not like the National Debt Ceiling -- wasn't dealing with "real money" in years prior:
Just To Keep Things In A Little Perspective: National Debt Edition
by David Poland, MCN Blogs -- April 5th, 2011
Year Debt (in billions)
2001 5,807
2002 6,228
2003 6,783
2004 7,379
2005 7,933
2006 8,507
2007 9,008
2008 10,025
Bush Administration – $4.2 trillion increase – 72% increase in the national debt
2009 11,910
2010 13,562
Obama Administration – $1.65 trillion increase – 14% increase in the national debt.
a 72% increase vs 14% increase ... WHO is the "Big Borrow and Spend" Party again?
WHAT did Barack Obama put on the National Tab, anyways, with his modest National Debt increases?
Obama promises bipartisan action on deficits
by Edward Luce in Washington, Financial Times -- Feb 24 2009
[Barack Obama] also promised to deliver a more transparent budget that would factor in the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, natural disasters and the likelihood that Mr Bush’s tax cuts would expire in 2010. Mr Obama’s headline budget is due to be announced on Thursday.
"In order to address our fiscal crisis, we have to be candid about its scope," Mr Obama said. "For too long, our budget process in Washington has been an exercise in deception, a series of accounting tricks to hide the extent of our spending and the shortfalls in our revenue."
[...]
Last week saw the signing of the $787bn fiscal stimulus package, while this year’s budget deficit is expected to exceed $1,500bn.
So President Obama puts on the books the cost of wars, the cost of natural disasters recovery {Katrina}, and the cost of the Bank Bailout -- all things that occurred under the GOP's watch ... and Obama gets blamed for these Record Debts just because they must finally be paid? Unbelievable!
WHY in the world would he do this, take the Fiscal heat for GOP's Bar Tab?
Well, let the President's team explain the reasoning, behind these "stand up" tactics ...
Obama plans a more transparent budget
by Christi Parsons and Maura Reynolds, latimes.com -- Feb 24, 2009
After eight years of budget practices that often camouflaged federal spending, President Obama is planning a new strategy of putting on the books as many costs as possible to demonstrate the extent of the nation's economic troubles, senior White House officials say.
Obama's first budget, scheduled to be released in broad outline Thursday, will include at the outset money for the Iraq war, the military buildup in Afghanistan and other expenditures. The approach is in contrast to that of the previous administration, which often tucked such costly commitments into separate spending requests that would go to Congress later.
"The president is determined to treat the American people as adults and be straight up about what we're facing and what we need to do to move forward," said David Axelrod, senior advisor to the president.
Well,
we wanted Transparency didn't we?
We wanted Adult supervision back in the White House again, right?
We, the American people, wanted to be treated like Adults ...
Perhaps we should be more careful about what we wish for, eh ...
That or be ready to tell the GOP Credit-Card Crowd -- to put up, or shut up. Their Party is over. The After-party clean up is still going on ...
The economy, is still struggling for traction, No Thanks to them, and their on-going Obstructionist ways. And they're the Responsible Party!? ... yeah right, in who's comic book storyline ... the Palin Patroits Express?
Wars and Bailouts are many things -- But one thing they're NOT, is FREE!