Obama debt hole deeper than George W. Bush's in less than half the time

Obama debt hole deeper than George W. Bush's in less than half the time

From the time Bush took office in January 2001 to his departure on Jan. 20, 2009, the debt increased $4.9 trillion -- from $5.73 trillion to $10.63 trillion. The debt now stands at $15.57 trillion, up $4.94 trillion since Obama took office less than four years ago.

We all know how deep the love for Obama runs here on ATS sometimes - he seems Teflon coated (even more than Bill Clinton ever was) he can do no wrong. However, I don't see how he and his supporters can spin this little fact into the prior administration's fault.

Here is the blame-shifter-in-Chief while campaigning...



Well I am curious if adding 4.9 Trillion over 8 years is "irresponsible" and "unpatriotic".

What is adding 4.9 trillion in about 4 years?

Is that criminal?

Before the RACE CARD comes out:

- I don't like anything for which Obama stands as a President.

- I think he's probably a decent guy, a caring dad, a smart man, etc..

- I don't like any of his policies.

- I could care less what color his skin is...

That said, I am not defending Bush either - he spent too much money that we don't have also. I am not really a Bush supporter - it's not about that. I

It's that Obama blames Bush for all his woes but last time I checked he has been the chief-executive of the US for almost 4 years. He will have doubled down on any spending levels for which Bush was responsible.

Travesty IMO.

Hope and Change indeed – changing into the third world is about it….

Ok, flame on -

reply to post by Golf66

It's called..... the Bills Have Arrived. Bush left our country in a very sad state of affairs and Obama gets to TRY to clean up the mess. Two wars at the same time while reducing taxes, and, having deregulated the banking industry and Wall Street, allowed the fat cats to rob the taxpayers blind. Remember, the bank bailouts were Started Under Bush but mainly carried out under Obama. TARP. So if I max out my credit card and leave the bill for someone else....... why wouldn't I get the blame? ANYONE following Bush, be they Republican or Democrat, was going to end up with some very big problems to deal with and very big bills to pay. Economic problems aren't always created or solved overnight, so administrations following one that caused many problems are left holding the bag. Certainly Obama has spent money in very poor ways at times, but still, he inherited a great many problems that were going to be charged to his term, politically.

reply to post by Golf66


"Obama debt hole deeper than George W. Bush's in less than half the time"?
You got that right buddy!


We're sinking!

reply to post by jaxnmarko
Wow.
It only took one post.
The first post after the OP.
Placing the blame on George W Bush.
Oh, he is guilty.
Just like most of the US Presidents before him....( change that to ALL of them)
Spending us deeper and deeper into debt.

Please remove your blinders, OBAMA is no different!

reply to post by Golf66

Politics aside, and I really mean that... You're absolutely right. Let's pretend these were two of the same party if it makes it better for some..but 4.9 trillion in 4 years vs. 8 years is bad. However...there is something even worse that makes your point so much more important.

4.9 trillion the first time was compounding interest and subsequent debt on a much smaller total number. The current admin seems to point to the outright insane policies of Bush as justification for even worse policies of their own. The trouble is.....due to the exponential growth of debt that goes unpaid, every dollar added today is just one fraction worse than the dollar before it. Oh the joys of Compound Interest...and the nightmare if we're on the wrong side of it.

So...Yeah...He dug a similar hole in half the time.......just so we could look up and realize the hole is yet deeper than the tape measure said it was.


*Update

It struck me right after I posted this.. I not only had a photo for the occasion, but it was already in ATS photo folders for a whole different thread months ago:



This Gentleman is paying his meal tab at a restaurant in Zimbabwe at the height of their nightmarish hyperinflation. See, they thought they could spend their way out of debt by making more of it too... This picture kinda goes with it..



I don't know what 4.9 trillion looks like for how much each President has dug us down. I just know what paying for dinner looks like after this insanity catches up to us. I'm glad we're going to all plastic for payment...we don't have arms big enough to carry the paper we'll need someday.

...Our children have no financial future as it stands now. Our Children have Zimbabwe and perhaps the Balkans as their future.

reply to post by Golf66

When was the United States NOT in debt?

We have always been in debt. It was trimmed down to $18,000 dollars when Andrew Jackson was in office.

Always.
Source

reply to post by Golf66


I'm a financials guy. Dollars mean nothing to me.. only percentages..

Technically.. for Obama to have done the same level of spending as George Bush Obama would have to raise the total debt to about $20 trillion dollars.

He's got 4 more years to do it.. I'm sure he will get there.

I'm going to up the ante.

Really, our entire financial fiasco is Ronald Reagan's fault. He screwed everything up and we have never recovered. We almost started to recover under Clibton, then W. Bush screwed up the recovery...and Obama hasn't had the cooperation required to create a more significant recovery than what we have (our employment rate is increasing/unemployment rate is decreasing, our LEI has been positive since the winter of '09, our stock market has recovered...). But I digress...

Why is it Reagan's fault?
ERTA '81; Mucking up the Tax Codes that, from 1945 to 1980, allowed every president, even Carter, to leave office with les federal debt. Add his dramatic increase in spending to the mix and his "Tax Reform" in '86, HE is more responsible for setting us down this path than anyone.

Mind you, as the nation suffered, the private sector and the already rediculously wealthy saw and continue seeing the consolidation of said wealth unseen since the Roaring 20s or Gilded Era.

It's not a spending problem; it clearly originated in the changing of decades worth of solid tax policy...decades that actually saw the expansion and increased upward mobility of the American Middle Class....as opposed to what we have seen since.

reply to post by madhatr137

Why can't it be Eisenhower's fault? He spent Social Security trust fund money on the Interstate Highway system. Ponzi schemes fail quicker if you blow the money on fun stuff instead of paying off the creditors.

Why can't it be the fault of every elected politician that did not decrease our national debt?

Maybe Woodrow Wilson deserves some blame for the Income Tax.

We can't blame the banks....

Mucking up the Tax Codes that, from 1945 to 1980, allowed every president, even Carter, to leave office with les federal debt

reply to post by madhatr137

Dan Rostenkowski deserves some credit for that too.

He wrote it, I think?

Originally posted by jaxnmarko

It's called..... the Bills Have Arrived.

Economic problems aren't always created or solved overnight, so administrations following one that caused many problems are left holding the bag. Certainly Obama has spent money in very poor ways at times, but still, he inherited a great many problems that were going to be charged to his term, politically.

Using that logic a leader could blame the admin before them all the way back to the first. Never taking responsibility… Lame.

Leadership is taking responsibility for everything your organization does or fails to do... That is from the time you take Command to the time you leave.

Obama is a poor example of a leader; if he were a Second Lieutenant (a very inexperienced leader) in the Army he wouldn't be allowed to blame his predecessors for his problems - why should the POTUS? Especially 3 years and some change into the term...

reply to post by butcherguy


Why can't it be Clintons fault? He looted $840 billion dollars from Social Security through intragovernmental borrowing (ahem uh ... that was never paid back.. has no interest.. and it really doesn't matter because almost everyone has by now forgotten it ever happened)

He called the looting a "surplus" .. because technically public debt dropped 3 years in a row.

Or why don't we blame Carter? How many Americans ended up with 15% mortgages.. inflation gone wild.. and the disaster that was created in 2006 when interest rates became so low that it null and void all interest backed financial contracts taken out under the Carter Administration (like life insurance plans.. annuities.. anything adjustable rate taken out under Carter) Gave some oldies a shock to see their fall back plan was .. well .. not there.

OR we could blame Nixon. He ended the Gold Standard officially, which led to the immediate debasing of the currency ten fold.. which created a bell curve going into 2012 that looks like an arrow launching to the moon.

OR we could blame Eisenhower.. while he preached about the military industrial complex he also fully supported it.. and the few times he was sober enough to make a wise decision ... he let other make it for him.

OR we could blame Truman who oversaw the official transition of the American economy going from a production and harvesting economy to a ... buy toasters and TV's economy.

OR we could blame FDR .. the grandfather of American Keynesian Economics. When life's got you down in the gutter digging trenches for the Civilian Conservation Corps have no fear. We'll just launch humanities largest war decimating millions of people to cull off a percentage of our population while simultaneously increasing production to create war material.

Or we could just say Democracy sucks.