A very interesting chart that I found.

This amazed me, I found it yesterday and it really opened my eyes to the 2 party fraud.

Chart here

This is chart displaying the percentage increases of debt under each president since Carter. What surprised me the most was Reagan, he nearly tripled the national debt and is revered by conservative republicans today? Brainwashed much? and ever since then the national debt has risen at somewhat the same pace since every other president since Regan. This chart right here displays the blatent fraud be played by the right and left, they are essentially the same and yet so many still let themselves be painted into the right or left corner.

Why not have a system where a large number of candidates are running from and independent platform and we just narrow it down from there in a series of elections that last about 6 months, without a party to represent it's a much more equal playing field, America is being played.

Better yet. How about we take charge of our own lives and vote on everything? Just dismantle the whole system and trash it! It has worked against the people since it's inception and shows no sign of recovery! Would it be such a great burden to think and act for ourselves? Why do we need others to make decisions for us? Are we not competent enough to rule our own lives? Think about it people, have we become so lazy that we have to pay others ten times our earnings to plan out our lives for us? That is the jist of it in a nutshell!

reply to post by Uniceft17


Very interesting chart...also color coded to represent a trend of increasing or decreasing debt.

Contrary to GOP rhetoric...President Obama is dramatically slowing the growth of debt.

Of course actual facts and numbers never sit well with idealogues, so I would expect silence or deliberate ignorance in responce to this OP.

Very informative numbers.

How about instead of playing party politics and misleading info with the percentage game - we just focus on the gross dollar amount of increase. Take the amount of "current" debt at the end of one presidents term and subtract the "current" debt at the end of his predecessor to get the gross increase. By doing it in this simple and non-misleading way you get the following:

Carter increased the debt by 277 billion dollars in 4 years
Reagan increased the debt by 1.754 trillion dollars in 8 years
Bush 1 increased the debt by 1.493 trillion dollars in 4 years
Clinton increased the debt by 1.485 trillion dollars in 8 years
Bush 2 increased the debt by 5.037 trillion dollars in 8 years
Obama increased the debt by 4.426 trillion dollars in just 3 years

What this tells me is that Bush 2 increased the debt by the largest dollar amount, but Obama will most likely beat that amount in half the time when the 2012 figures come out - so fail on the Obama is better thing. Reagan, who I'll admit that I did like (and served in the Army during his term) increased the debt 5 times more than Carter did. On the one hand I "get" that he outspent the former Soviet Union in order to make them collapse, but look at them now. Perhaps he should have not spent so much. And Clinton - while I did not particularly like his leadership (personally I think he's alright though), the country did enjoy a fairly successful economic period and for the most part we all did pretty well as citizens. I have often said that I initially did not like Clinton as a President at all. It took Bush 2 and Obama to make me long for the Clinton period again.

In any event, they all failed. I wish people could take off the blinders and see beyond what their Republican or Democrat ideologies tell them to see. Especially the Bush 2 vs Obama crowd. Why can't anyone see that the two of them are exactly the same? If you hated one of them, you have to hate the other and conversely if you love one of them you have to love the other. Besides a few differing beliefs they ran the country into the ground in the exact same manner. Yes, Obama "inherited" a horrible economy - but his fix was to do the same thing that Bush 2 did only he is doing it faster! What we truly need is a different option. Someone who is not beholden to any "special interest" group. But what we have are two sides of the same coin and a public who just can't seem to see it.

Edited to add:
To further this simple formula, if you take the gross debt increase for each president and divide that number by the number of years they were in office - you'll get an estimated annual debt increase for each president as follows:

Carter averaged a debt increase of 69.25 billion dollars per year
Reagan averaged a debt increase of 219.25 billion dollars per year
Bush 1 averaged a debt increase of 373.25 billion dollars per year
Clinton averaged a debt increase of 185.63 billion dollars per year
Bush 2 averaged a debt increase of 629.63 billion dollars per year
Obama averaged a debt increase of 1.475 trillion per year so far

So once again, Obama = worst, but Bush 2 paved the way.
And yes, I get that some years were far worse than others, but this set of figures is a simplified calculation just to show the average based on each President's term in office.

Originally posted by tallcool1
By doing it in this simple and non-misleading way you get the following:

Carter increased the debt by 277 billion dollars in 4 years
Reagan increased the debt by 1.754 trillion dollars in 8 years
Bush 1 increased the debt by 1.493 trillion dollars in 4 years
Clinton increased the debt by 1.485 trillion dollars in 8 years
Bush 2 increased the debt by 5.037 trillion dollars in 8 years
Obama increased the debt by 4.426 trillion dollars in just 3 years

Yes...Simple...but YES misleading. Each President enters office with a budget of scheduled/approved/voted on/passed spending that the previous adminsitration and congress authorized. The first 3 quarters of any Presidency constitutes the previous administrations budget.

From Marketwatch...Note that even when the author assigned Obama the last 3 quarters of the previous administrations budget through Sept. 09, the rate of spending is still dramtically smaller than other Admins.

Almost everyone believes that Obama has presided over a massive increase in federal spending, an “inferno” of spending that threatens our jobs, our businesses and our children’s future. Even Democrats seem to think it’s true.

But it didn’t happen. Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s.

Even hapless Herbert Hoover managed to increase spending more than Obama has.

Here are the facts, according to the official government statistics:

• In the 2009 fiscal year — the last of George W. Bush’s presidency — federal spending rose by 17.9% from $2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion. Check the official numbers at the Office of Management and Budget.

• In fiscal 2010 — the first budget under Obama — spending fell 1.8% to $3.46 trillion.

• In fiscal 2011, spending rose 4.3% to $3.60 trillion.

• In fiscal 2012, spending is set to rise 0.7% to $3.63 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the budget that was agreed to last August.

• Finally in fiscal 2013 — the final budget of Obama’s term — spending is scheduled to fall 1.3% to $3.58 trillion. Read the CBO’s latest budget outlook.

Over Obama’s four budget years, federal spending is on track to rise from $3.52 trillion to $3.58 trillion, an annualized increase of just 0.4%.

articles.marketwatch.com...

reply to post by Indigo5


Actually, using the whole "percentage" argument is misleading. Just look at the actual dollars spent. Even if you attribute Obama's first year in office to Bush 2, you have him starting (at the end of 2009) with a gross debt of $12,311,349,677,512.00. At the end of 2011 the debt was $15,125,898,976,397.00. This is a debt increase of $2,814,549,295,885 in 2 years - which is still an average increase of 1.407 trillion dollars per year. So even when you play the "blame Bush" game and use percentages - the actual dollars spent tells a different story.

I am absolutely not defending Bush with these figures in any way, however. While Obama is spending more actual dollars in far less time than Bush did, I still see Bush as equally guilty.

If one year I spent $1,000.00 on stuff and the next year I spent $1,500.00 on stuff, I increased my spending by 50%. If my wife only spent one dollar on stuff and the next year she spent 10 dollars on stuff, she increased her spending by 1,000%. So unsing percentages as a measure of spending is truly misleading. The numbers are accurate (she increased spending by 1,000% and I only increased 50%), but when you look at the actual dollars, I spent 500 dollars more while she only spent 9 dollars more. In this case, I spent 491 dollars more than she did but I can honestly claim that her spending increased at a significantly higher percentage than mine. This is why I prefer to look at actual numbers in order to get a more "honest" picture of the spending.

reply to post by tallcool1


Frankly the math gets complicated fast. If you are eager to get to real numbers, just a few things off the top of my head would be...

Yes..adjust for the first 9 months being last years budget with starting numbers..
Adjust for population growth and resultant increase in outlays..

account for decrease in revenues? During the economic crisis those dropped dramatically and spending cuts take time....a lot of time...to work there way through the grid-locked congress.

War spending? Should a Potus be penalized for continuing operations of a previous administrations war? It takes 1 to 2 years to exit a conflict zone and it costs money to do it.

Not excusing spending or assigning blame...just saying that it is a complex measure that is falsely used as a simple one in politics.

I am satisifed with a downward trend in the growth of spending as well as real dollar spending under the current administration. It is the "right direction". I have no issue with us disagreeing here.

Originally posted by Indigo5
reply to post by tallcool1

 

Frankly the math gets complicated fast. If you are eager to get to real numbers, just a few things off the top of my head would be...

Yes..adjust for the first 9 months being last years budget with starting numbers..
Adjust for population growth and resultant increase in outlays..

account for decrease in revenues? During the economic crisis those dropped dramatically and spending cuts take time....a lot of time...to work there way through the grid-locked congress.

War spending? Should a Potus be penalized for continuing operations of a previous administrations war? It takes 1 to 2 years to exit a conflict zone and it costs money to do it.

Spending cuts? In addition to continuing and increasing Bush's wars he is using drones to strike a few more countries. Yes, Bush started these wars, but Obama is not winding them down at all - just moving the troops to other "theaters" as well as putting Iran in his sights.

Not excusing spending or assigning blame...just saying that it is a complex measure that is falsely used as a simple one in politics.

OK, agreed.

I am satisifed with a downward trend in the growth of spending as well as real dollar spending under the current administration. It is the "right direction". I have no issue with us disagreeing here.

edit on 1-8-2012 by Indigo5 because: (no reason given)

But that's what I'm trying to point out. There is no "downward trend". We can massage the numbers all day to prove points on both "sides", but at the end of the day we as a country are most certainly NOT going in the right direction.

I also have no issue with us disagreeing here. I think we can just respectfully say we disagree with each other and leave it at that. No need for us to go back and forth for several pages essentially repeating ourselves. I do appreciate you being very civil while disagreeing with me though. For that I can give you a star.

I think I will also bow out of this thread now.

Originally posted by tallcool1

Spending cuts? In addition to continuing and increasing Bush's wars he is using drones to strike a few more countries. Yes, Bush started these wars, but Obama is not winding them down at all - just moving the troops to other "theaters" as well as putting Iran in his sights.

Iran is in the GOPs sights, not Obama's. His approach has been tough talk and sanctions..No on is going to bomb Iran. It is pointless.

Drone strikes? Not only less lives lost than sending 200k troops to occupy, but much less expensive.

Pres. Obama ended the war in Iraq

Troop levels in Afghanistan AND Iraq??? 180k troops deployed when he was sworn in...right now 70k.

-110k troops.

Originally posted by tallcool1

Not excusing spending or assigning blame...just saying that it is a complex measure that is falsely used as a simple one in politics.

OK, agreed.

I am satisifed with a downward trend in the growth of spending as well as real dollar spending under the current administration. It is the "right direction". I have no issue with us disagreeing here.

edit on 1-8-2012 by Indigo5 because: (no reason given)

But that's what I'm trying to point out. There is no "downward trend". We can massage the numbers all day to prove points on both "sides", but at the end of the day we as a country are most certainly NOT going in the right direction.

I also have no issue with us disagreeing here. I think we can just respectfully say we disagree with each other and leave it at that. No need for us to go back and forth for several pages essentially repeating ourselves. I do appreciate you being very civil while disagreeing with me though. For that I can give you a star.

I think I will also bow out of this thread now.

Listen...Niether the GOP nor the Democrats will "heal" the economy, it will do that on it's own. All they can do is make it worse. I think that the Democrats in efforts to help will do much less, or no damage, vs the GOP who are chomping at the bit to exploit a bad moment in America for political and financial gain that would benefit the 1%.

reagan created 20 million jobs in 8 years
average growth in gdp was 6.4% per year.

obama supposedly created 4 million jobs in 4 years
average growth in gdp was 1.7% per year

and you can't create jobs when you have not replaced the jobs lost in the first place.

so, obama 0 jobs created...