President Bush And The National Debt

(CBS) By CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller.

June 16, 2007

To hear President Bush tell it, he's on the side of the angels when it comes to federal spending.

In his Saturday radio address, he blasted congressional Democrats for pursuing "tax and spend policies," while trumpeting his own commitment to keep taxes low and restrain federal spending.

He said his plan will produce a balanced federal budget by 2012.

But what Mr. Bush didn't mention, and what he almost never mentions, is the National Debt.

With good reason.

On the day he took office, the National Debt stood at this unfathomable number:

$5,727.776.738,304.64

In fiscal shorthand, that's $5.7 trillion dollars. Trillion with a "T."

Six and a half years later, the Bureau of Public Debt tells us the National Debt clocks in at a staggering:

$8,835,268,597,181.95

That's $8.8 trillion – an increase of $3.1 trillion dollars since January 20, 2001. And that amounts to a jump of 54% during Mr. Bush's watch.

If you wanted to pay it off, dividing it equally among the U.S. population (estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau to be 302,103,675), it would come to $29,245.82 for every man, woman and child.

So it's not really hard to understand why Mr. Bush almost never mentions it.

Rest of article here.

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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." - Schopenhauer