Who Legislates More Debt, D's or R's??

Brain Food Book Store Please copy this Chart or download it and put it up on your website or print out copies and pass them around!!! Email copies to your friends! Or best, get together with your friends and put a copy of this chart in an ad in your local newspaper! You don't have to attribute it to anyone, the important thing is to show every American how the Republicans are bankrupting America (while cutting every program they can get away with) and passing their debts to your children and grandchildren, and their children and grandchildren! The chart above is based on data from the Bureau of Public Debt up to September 8, 2008, the last reporting day before this chart was created. The 2008 Fiscal Year ends on September 30th. It seems likely that the National Debt will exceed $600 Billion (!) for the first time ever in fiscal 2008. Not that any of the Press, mostly owned by Republicans and right-wing foreigners, will report it. By comparison, please note that Democratic President Bill Clinton increased the National Debt by less than $18 Billion in his ENTIRE LAST YEAR in office! At the rate that the Clinton administration was reducing the debt increases, an Al Gore administration would have almost paid off the entire National Debt by 2008! We would have had EIGHT STRAIGHT YEARS OF DEBT DECREASES!!! A far cry from what Bush and the Republicans gave us. Bill Clinton steadily reduced the debt increase while he was in office, thanks largely to the 1993 Debt Reduction Act* that was OPPOSED BY EVERY SINGLE REPUBLICAN IN CONGRESS, led by Newt Gingrich! The Republicans claimed that the Debt Reduction Act would result in HIGHER deficits and also result in an economic recession during President Clinton's term. Obviously, with hindsight they were completely wrong. Republicans don't seem to be very good at math, or economics. Now, after 20 years of huge Republican deficits and Republican recessions, the National Debt has increased from $937 Billion -- LESS than $1 Trillion -- the day Ronald Reagan took office to ALMOST $10 TRILLION!!! The Debt has increased more than TEN TIMES what it was when Ronald Reagan promised to reduce the National Debt by 1983! We and our children and their children will be paying off the debt added by Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush for the next 100 years and more! For what !?!? Services have been cut across America. Police and Fire Departments haven't grown nearly as fast as our population. Even the number of troops in the military has been cut while military spending has skyrocketed! (Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury, Bureau of the Public Debt - ) To see the levels of the National Debt from 1791 1953 to the present, click Historical Information. (Sorry, they've moved to a new page on "TreasuryDirect" that only shows the Historical Debt from 1953 to the present. You can still view the old "Historical Debt" page on the "Internet Archive Wayback Machine" by clicking here -- choose Feb 08, 2007 or earlier and click on the appropriate date range under "Historical Debt Outstanding - Annual" to see the older data.) To see the National Debt from 1993 to this week, to the PENNY, click Debt to the Penny. (Thanks to Bruce Mewhinney from DIOSA.NET for pointing out the changes in the Treasury Department's website, and visit DIOSA.NET's National Debt page for much more information!) (Click here for Downloadable versions of the Increases in the National Debt Chart.) * (The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 -- the Republicans used their claim that this bill would increase the taxes of middle-income Americans to take control of the House of Representatives in 1995. In reality, only the top 2% of earners -- those earning million$ or more per year -- had an increase in their taxes. George W. Bush and the Republican Congress have given those high earners, including many foreign billionaires who earn dividends in the U.S.A., numerous huge tax cuts since Bush was appointed President, with the results you see above. And of course the Repubs have gutted the Debt Reduction Act of 1993 since they took control of both Houses of Congress.) "Our National Debt is up Three Trillion Dollars Because of George W. Bush!" It's nice to know that someone else has noticed what George W. Bush did to our National Debt! This is from a California Democratic Party commercial opposing the reelection of Governor Schwarzenegger in 2006. NOTES FROM PREVIOUS VERSIONS OF THIS CHART: * (1996) A number of Republicans have sent e-mails complaining that the Congress was Democratic while Ronald Reagan was President. Unfortunately, only half the Congress was Democratic during President Reagan's first 6 years in office, when the entire National Debt more than DOUBLED. The upper house of Congress, the U.S. Senate, had a Republican majority during those six years, which comprised most of President Reagan's time in office. That's why Bob Dole was the Senate Majority Leader while Reagan was President. Those Republicans also don't seem to know that any Bill passing out of Congress had to be approved by BOTH Houses of Congress, even by the Republican Senate! Furthermore, to go into Law a Bill must be signed by the President -- none other than Ronald Reagan during those critical years! President Reagan almost TRIPLED the National Debt during his eight years in office! (1996) Other Republicans have written that the above chart couldn't possibly be correct, because the "National Debt Clock" clicks UP all the time! Well, whoever programmed that "Clock" set its algorithm to INCREASE every second. But whoever maintains the Web site surreptitiously "adjusts" the numbers every evening after the Bureau of Public Debt publishes its new, up-to-the-minute, National Debt figures. For instance, in October 1996 the National Debt actually went DOWN over several weeks, but the "National Debt Clock" ticked UP every second of those weeks. Yet, from one day to the next the National Debt Clock's level was often LOWER than the day before, without the "Clock" ticking backwards once!!! Must be post modern math! Perhaps that's why the CBS finally stopped showing that "Clock" on its Evening News! Also, based on the records of recent Presidents, the "National Debt Clock" should tick upwards at a much faster rate for Republican Presidents, which it doesn't. If you want to see the true level of the National Debt, just visit the Bureau of Public Debt website. (That text was written for the 1996 version of this chart; it is even more apt after eight years of "President" George W. Bush.)