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President Obama on Pace to Borrow $6.2T in One Term -- More Than All Presidents from Washington Through Clinton Combined
The borrowing that our President has done within his term is more than any President in the history of this country.
An article put out today by CNS News, reports that at the average rate the debt has been increasing - $4.24 billion per day - puts him on track to increase the national debt by $6.2 trillion by the end of his term on Jan. 20, 2013. This is more debt than was accumulated by all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Bill Clinton combined.
According to debt figures published by the U.S. Treasury, since Obama assumed office on January 20, 2009, the U.S. has added $4.6 trillion to its national debt. That approaches the presidential record set by George W. Bush of $4.9 trillion, but there’s a catch to that. Bush set that record in two terms — in 96 months.
Excuses have ensued for the buildup of debt under Obama's watch, not surprisingly blamed on Bush. Among these are the two wars, a prescription drug program for seniors, and tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 - all that were not paid for.
However, there are problems with these excuses, chief among them that none of this explains the sharp difference between the rate of debt under Bush and under Obama. After all, the wars all started early in Bush’s tenure. So too did the tax cuts and the Medicare Part D program. Yet not only did deficit spending remain under control throughout almost all of the Bush years, deficit spending actually declined in Bush’s second term until the economic collapse occurred.
To be fair, look at the entirety of Republican control of the House, which lasted 12 years and bridged the Clinton and Bush administrations. In that entire span, Republican budgets added $3.873 trillion to the national debt. That is not only far below what Democrats have added in just one-third of the time, it’s also far below the Obama administration’s own projections of how much they will add to the national debt in just one term.
The explosion of federal spending, $5.6 trillion for Democrats in less than 4 years, is due in part to the increased regulation that's strangling job growth. It is no coincidence that this expansion in federal size and power accompanies an extended economic slump and a refusal of investors to put their capital to work.
