The Bush Debt Totals $7.7 Trillion

Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress at 5:57 AM on March 12, 2008.

Today, lawmakers took to the Senate floor and blasted President Bush’s wasteful spending. To fully illustrate the impact, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), brought up a chart showing the budget plans of President Clinton versus the budget formulated by Bush. He concluded that by squandering Clinton’s government surplus, Bush has cost the country $7.7 trillion:

This next chart illustrates the value of the differences between the budget landscape planned by President Clinton and the one created by President Bush. As you can see, the difference between the two is a staggering $7.7 trillion. This number represents the fiscal harm that President Bush has inflected on our nation. This number is the Bush debt. […]

Like most concepts of enormous size, this amount takes some thought to comprehend. $7.7 trillion is $25,000 owed by every adult or child in the United States.

The federal budget deficit is currently at “$87.7 billion so far this budget year, double the $42.2 billion imbalance recorded during the same period in 2007.”

Additionally, five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, national unemployment is going up. Between December 2006 and December 2007, the national unemployment rate increased by 13.6 percent in seasonally adjusted terms, from 4.4 to 5.0 percent. Additionally, 68 percent of the American public believes that redeployment from Iraq would help fix the country’s economic woes.

Transcript:

WHITEHOUSE: When President Bush took over, leading economists were debating the consequences of this great nation being debt-free. Standing tall in the world with no claim on it by foreign powers. But this President made a different choice. Instead of keeping our nation on the path to economic security and prosperity, to new investments in our health care system, our students, our seniors, and our veterans, the President who called for responsibility squandered away the surpluses he inherited, mortgaged away our children and grandchildren’s futures, and compromised the quality of working Americans’ lives.

How can we measure the magnitude of the harm done to our economy and our people done by this administration’s decision to deviate from the responsible policies of President Clinton?

The first chart shows the budget plans of President Clinton as he left office and the budget formulated by President Bush. As you can see, the Clinton line — represented in blue based on his levels of taxation and spending — has budget surpluses every single year of this decade. In contrast, the Bush budget line — represented in red — has deep record-setting deficits in every year after 2001.

This next chart illustrates the value of the differences between the budget landscape planned by President Clinton and the one created by President Bush. As you can see, the difference between the two is a staggering $7.7 trillion. This number represents the fiscal harm that President Bush has inflected on our nation. This number is the Bush debt. […]

Like most concepts of enormous size, this amount takes some thought to comprehend. $7.7 trillion is $25,000 owed by every adult or child in the United States.

Tagged as: bush, economy, national debt, whitehouse

Amanda Terkel is Deputy Research Director at the Center for American Progress and serves as Deputy Editor for The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress.