Fiscal Record and How We Got Here

 According to http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm, the debt at the end of the 1980 fiscal year, on September 30th, 1980, was $907,701,000,000. On September 30th, 1981, it was $997,855,000,000. Averaging it out over the year gives a debt of $246,997,260.27 per day.

Reagan took office 112 days later on January 20th, 1981. The debt on that date could be estimated as $907,701,000,000 plus 112 x $246,997,260.27, or $935,364,693,151.

Bill Clinton was the first president to slow the rate of the accrual of debt after the current out-of-control spending began with the Borrow and Spend Republicans in 1981.

The final amount of the senior Bush debt was $4,174,218,594,232.91 (according to http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np), and Clinton became president on January 20th, 1993. Bill Clinton saw $1,553,558,144,071.73 added to the national debt during the eight years of his presidency.

However, from the start of fiscal year 1994 7 months after Clinton became president, until the start of fiscal year 2002 (7 months after Bush took office), the amount of money paid toward interest on the existing Federal debt was $2,767,282,794,374.59 (http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.htm).

Therefore, no amount of the national debt is attributable to Bill Clinton - his policies of higher taxes and reduced spending actually simultaneously reduced the debt and brought about the strongest economy since World War II, despite the fiscal disaster left in the wake of Reagan and the first Bush.

The debt was at $5,727,776,738,304.64 on January 19th, 2001, the last business day before George W. Bush took the office of president. The debt was at $10,628,881,485,510.23 on January 16th, 2009, the last business day before Barack H. Obama became president.

During his administration, George W. Bush increased the national debt by $4,901,104,747,205.59
and personally approved of the creation of 46% of the entire national debt, in only 8 years.

Starting in 2003, George W. Bush destroyed the world economy by encouraging U.S. banks to make loans to those who could not afford them, through schemes such as the "American Dream Downpayment Initiative", and through the destruction of oversight, such as lawsuits to prevent state securities laws from being enforced on Bush's watch. Once Bush's policies led to their inevitable result of economic collapse, the United States found itself in a situation where it had to take on debt in order to restore the economy.

This means that all of the money spent to restore the economy, until it is restored, is also attributable to George W. Bush.

Further, with our interest payments on the current debt at almost half a trillion dollars per year, that amount will be attributed to Borrow-And-Spend Republicanism as well.

That means that Ronald Wilson Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush, and George Walker Bush's borrow-and-spend Republican administrations oversaw, approved, or caused to be spent, almost all of the national debt, except for as much as $935,364,693,151.00.

The current calculation on the site is based on the U.S. Treasury's published Total Public Debt Outstanding as of Thursday, February 21, 2013, when the debt was $16,608,318,357,376.50. On Tuesday, September 04, 2007, the debt was $8,995,145,905,720.62.

This means that with the current national debt around $16,624,879,627,377.80, we're adding $3,812,304,682.85 per day, or $44,123.90 per second.

You can also find more information at the U.S. National Debt Clock.
Or other sites: http://www.reagandebt.com/, http://www.robertreich.org/reich/20050126.asp