thunder wrote:
On Tue, 04 Oct 2005 03:31:48 -0700, tschnautz wrote:

and be back to almost $8 TRILLION in debt, (thank GWB for
the last $2.5 trillion of that) before we know it.


And who is resposible for the previous 5.5 tril? I got an Idea, but then
again, that wasn't his fault, now was it?

Uh, it might not be who you think.

http://zfacts.com/p/318.htm

Nice chart.

A casual eyeballing shows that when Truman took office, the national
debt was at 90% of the GNP. During his administration, the national
debt dropped to 70% of the GNP.

Under Eishenhower, the national debt dropped from 70-55% of the GNP.

Under Kennedy and Johnson, the national debt dropped (during a time of
war) from 55-40% of the GNP.

Under Nixon and Ford, the national debt dropped (while there was still
a war going on) from 40-35% of the GNP.

Under Carter, during a time of high inflation and recession, the
national debt only dropped a few percent, from about 35% of the GNP to
about 32% of the GNP.

Under Ronald Reagan and Bush the First, the national debt *rose* from
32% of the GNP to 65% of the GNP. *Doubled as a percentage of the GNP*
(!)

Under Clinton, the national debt dropped from 65% of the GNP to about
57% of the GNP. In retrospect, Clinton should have done more to reduce
the debt as we had a "boom" economy throughout much of the 90's- but at
least it went down as a percentage of the GNP during his term.

Under Bush the Second, the national debt has risen from 57% of the GNP
to 65% of the GNP. As a percentage of the GNP, he has run up the debt
as a percentage of the GNP to as high a humber as we have seen since
Bush the First was in office, and almost as high as when Eisenhower
took office and we were still paying off WWII.

Here's the scary part. The debt has actually increased in dollars
something like 40% since the begining of Bush II's administration. If
the economy stumbles on the price of oil, the sword rattlers get us
involved with Iran and/or North Korea, or even the tiniest little burp
sends us into a recession we could theoretically see increased spending
and decreased GNP that would put us into unimaginable national debt vs.
GNP numbers.