Older increases where off smaller bases so the percentage increase is higher. But not very meaningful. Increasing the national debt from one million to a billion would be a thousandfold or 100,000% increase*, but wouldn't be a huge deal (in a multi-trillion dollar economy). Increasing it the 47% that Obama added** is a huge deal.
A more important way to measure things is deficits as a percentage of GDP
Well, prior to Obama, our annual deficit spending had only exceeded 6.0 percent of GDP during the Civil War, World War I, and World War II. Except during those huge conflicts, our deficits had never exceeded 6.0 percent of GDP in any year — not during the Great Depression, not at the height of the Cold War defense buildup, not ever. But that’s no longer the case. During Obama’s four years in the White House (and, again, using his own numbers), annual deficit spending will average 8.4 percent of GDP.
That’s nearly double the average annual level of deficit spending under any other post-War president. As the following chart shows, this has truly been a historic presidency — more profligate than any other by far:
weeklystandard.com
businessinsider.com
* Technically a 100000% increase would be one million to one billion and a million, since then the increase would be 100,000% of the starting point.
** Of course presidents are not solely responsible, a lot of the blame falls on congress, but since everyone here is talking about debt by presidency I went along.
Considering congress rather than the president you get
freerepublic.com |
