Politics

It's Official: President Obama Has Added More to the National Debt than President Bush

|

Yesterday I looked at the Congressional Budget Office analysis of President Obama's 2012 budget framework. Politico headlined an article on the same report: "Exploding debt under Obama's policies." But as CBS News shows today, we've already seen an explosion of debt under Obama:

Mak Knoller of CBS writes:

The National Debt has now increased more during President Obama's three years and two months in office than it did during 8 years of the George W. Bush presidency.

The Debt rose $4.899 trillion during the two terms of the Bush presidency. It has now gone up $4.939 trillion since President Obama took office.

The latest posting from the Bureau of Public Debt at the Treasury Department shows the National Debt now stands at $15.566 trillion. It was $10.626 trillion on President Bush's last day in office, which coincided with President Obama's first day.

The National Debt also now exceeds 100% of the nation's Gross Domestic Product, the total value of goods and services.

(Note that total national debt is slightly different from Debt Held by the Public, which is what the CBO analysis focused on.)