History Refresher for Conservatives: Debt Skyrocketed under bush
Lots of post with wild-eyed claims of the debt under Obama who took office 3 months ago and hasn’t had a budget passed yet.
Here’s your history, stems:
$5 trillion added to national debt under Bush
January 2009
When Bush took office, the national debt was $5.73 trillion. When he left, it was $10.7 trillion. That’s a difference of $4.97 trillion
But the debt has shot up significantly during the past few months, mostly due to the economic meltdown of 2008 and the government’s efforts to shore up the federal banking system.
From the conservative Washington Times:
Eight years in office, a $10.6 trillion debt
President Bush has nearly doubled the national debt during his eight years in the White House. As he prepares to return to Texas next month, Mr. Bush is on track to add $5 trillion to the $5.73 trillion national debt he inherited when he took office. According to Treasury Department data, the number was $10.66 trillion at the end of November, and it has been rising at an astronomical rate.
During fiscal 2008, which ended Sept. 30, the national debt increased by more than $1 trillion, breaking the previous fiscal year record of more than $600 billion. The national debt includes obligations held by the public as well as the intragovernmental debt in trust funds such as those operated by Medicare and Social Security.
The government’s debt situation is about to get worse.
“Federal debt should increase by $2 trillion in fiscal year 2009,” said Stan Collender, a longtime budget analyst who is the managing director at Qorvis Communications.
“We are in a situation where you do what you have to do to get the economy moving again,” said Mr. Collender, who then issued a warning about the consequences of the soaring debt level. “It will complicate federal-debt financing and fiscal policy for decades.”
