Who Ran Up More Debt--Bush or Obama?
On the air Wednesday "Michael the Liberal," a regular caller from Seattle, called Michael the Conservative (Medved) a liar for saying that Obama ran up more debt than Bush. What’s the truth?
Since Barack Obama became president—between the beginning of his term and the end of his third year as president—gross federal debt will have increase by $5.5 trillion. By the same token, gross federal debt increased by $4.2 trillion under Bush. In other words, under Obama the debt has increased from $10.0 trillion to $15.5 trillion. Under Bush, $5.8 trillion to $10 trillion.
Some people will insist that Obama isn’t responsible for the run away spending that took place in his first year—that a lot of it was a holdover from Bush. So even taking that into account and running the meter on Obama only from the beginning of fiscal year 2010, he still increased the deficit from 11.9 trillion to 16. 7 trillion (projected). That means an average yearly increase for Obama of 1.6 trillion as opposed to an average yearly increase for Bush (including the free-spending year of 2009) of .76 trillion. Obama, by any standard, has added to the debt more than twice as quickly as Bush.
Sources: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_debt
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm