Wampum

At the end of FY 2005, the national debt stood at a little over $7.9 trillion dollars.

Under President Bush's proposed budget and accompanying forecasts, the on-budget deficits for FY 2006-2009 will be:

2006 $610 billion
2007 $642 billion
2008 $679 billion
2009 $716 billion

Those four years of on-budget deficits total $2.647 trillion. Thus, by the time the country finishes with Mr. Bush's last budget, the national debt will be about $10.5 trillion. That works out to about $80,000 per taxpayer.

How much of that debt will have been incurred under Democratic administrations and how much under Republican Presidents? In order to answer those questions we first need to be able to assign responsibility for the each year's growth in the national debt. The first year of each presidential term operates under the budget of the prior administration. Thus, for our purposes, President Bush's two "terms" will encompass FY 2002-FY 2009. Similarly, President Clinton's budget terms ran from FY 2004-FY 2001. With that understanding, let's look at the numbers. I got the yearly National Debt totals from the Treasury Department.

Pre-Kennedy
Before the Presidency of John Kennedy (from the beginning of the Republic through FY 1961) the total accumulated debt was $296 billion. As that is a small number compared to the $10.5 trillion, and as I do not want to do the math, I shall assign the responsibility for all of that debt to the Democrats.

Kennedy-Johnson
During the eight years of budgets submitted by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson (FY 1962-FY 1969) the debt increased to $368 billion. That is an increase of $72 billion or 24%.

Running Total:
Democrats $368 billion
Republicans 0

Nixon/Ford
During the two Nixon/Ford terms (FY1970-FY1977) the national debt increased by $351 billion to a total of $719 billion. That represents a 49% increase.

Running Total:
Democrats $368 billion
Republicans $351 billion

Carter
Under Jimmy Carter (FY 1978-1981), the national debt increased from $719 billion to $1.029 trillion. That is an increase of $310 billion, or 43% in just four years.

Running Total:
Democrats $678 billion
Republicans $351 billion

Reagan
The eight years of budgets submitted by President Reagan (FY1982-FY1989) saw the national debt increase from a little over a trillion dollars to $2.857 trillion. That is an increase of $1.828 trillion or 178%.

Running Total:
Democrats $678 billion
Republicans $2,179 billion

George H. W. Bush
The four year term of George H. W. Bush (FY1990-FY1993) saw an increase in the national debt of $1.554 trillion or 54%. The total debt at the end of that term was $4.411 trillion.

Running Total:
Democrats $678 billion
Republicans $3,733 billion

Clinton
The two Clinton terms (FY1994-FY2001) saw the national debt rise from $4.411 trillion to a total of $5.807 trillion, an increase of $1,396 billion, or 32%.

Running Total:
Democrats $2,074 billion
Republicans $3,733 billion

George W. Bush
If the current President Bush's budget forecasts are accurate (a doubtful proposition, see below), his two terms will see the national debt rise by $4.693 billion to a total of $10.5 trillion, an increase of 81%.

Running Total:
Democrats $2,074 billion
Republicans $8,426 billion

Ranking the twelve individual four-year Presidential terms from Kennedy through President Bush's second term by the percentage increase in the national debt (from most debt to least), we get the following:

Reagan I 89.1%

G.H.W. Bush 54.4%

Ford 53%

Reagan II 46.8%

Carter 43.1%

G.W. Bush I 36.6%

G.W. Bush II 32.4%

Nixon 27.7%

Clinton I 22.7%

Johnson 15.0%

Kennedy 8.45%

Clinton II 7.3%

The worst four spots (and seven of the worst eight) are held by Republican Presidents while the four best spots are held by Democrats. Only one Democrat (Carter) is among the worst eight terms. Please note that the George W. Bush II term could move to a worse spot in the rankings. While all other administrations are ranked according to actual performance, the second Bush term is ranked by his administration's own budget estimates. Those estimates include nothing for the Iraq or Afghanistan wars, assume no fix of the alternative minimum tax, assume discretionary budget cuts that the Senate has already rejected, as well as other questionable assumptions.

All told, our analysis shows that 80% of the national debt has been incurred in years in which Republican Presidents submitted the budget while about 20% happened under budgets submitted by Democrats.

Mr. Bush's budget projections estimate that his last budget (FY 2009) will include $419 billion of net on-budget interest payments. Republicans have run up 80% of the debt causing such payments. Thus, in that year alone, taxpayers will have to pay $335.2 billion in interest on the debt run up by Republicans (about $2500 per taxpayer). That is more than $120 billion in excess of the entire on and off budget deficit Mr. Bush predicts for FY 2009.

Looked at another way, in Mr. Bush's estimate, the amount of taxpayer money spent in FY 2009 to finance the debt run up under Republican Presidents will exceed the combined amounts spent for the Legislative branch, the Judicial branch, the Executive Office of the President, NASA, the Small Business Administration, the GSA, foreign aid, the National Science Foundation, the Corps of Engineers, as well as the Departments of Commerce, Energy, Interior, Homeland Security, Education, Justice, Labor, State, and E.P.A. Oh yea, there would also be almost $67 billion left over to prevent and cure autism.

Of course, we should just ignore all that history and think of the GOP as the party of fiscal responsibility so long as they say they favor a Constitutional Amendment to balance the budget.