Actually GW Bush nealry doubled the deficit during his eight years. Read Below
On the day President Bush took office, the national debt stood at $5.727 trillion. The latest number from the Treasury Department shows the national debt now stands at more than $9.849 trillion. That's a 71.9 percent increase on Mr. Bush's watch.
Bush Administration Adds $4 Trillion To National Debt - Couric & Co. - CBS News
UPDATED: Debt Ceiling Limits (1939- 2011) | The Big Picture
• G.O.P. Strategy On Debt Ceiling (March 1, 2002)
Republican leaders in the House told the Bush administration that they did not have enough votes to increase the legal limit on the national debt and urged the White House to attach the measure to another piece of popular legislation, possibly a supplemental military appropriations bill. The administration has asked Congress to raise the debt limit by $750 billion, to $6.7 trillion, by the end of March, when the government is likely to breach the limit. Richard W. Stevenson
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• Bush Seeks Increase in National Debt Limit (December 25, 2002)
The Bush administration asked Congress today to approve another increase in the limit on national debt, saying it will run out of the authority to borrow money by late February.
The deputy Treasury secretary, Kenneth W. Dam, in a letter to the House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, cited the cost of combating terrorism and the economic slowdown for the governmentÂ’s growing indebtedness.
The federal government, which enjoyed a budget surplus as recently as two years ago, had a shortfall of $157 billion this year and is expected to have a larger one in 2003.
Congress raised the governmentÂ’s debt limit in July by $450 billion, to a total of $6.4 trillion, but administration officials predicted even then that they would need to raise the limit again by some time next year.
• As U.S. Debt Ceiling Is Reached, Bush Administration Seeks to Raise It Once Again (October 15, 2004)
Less than a day after President Bush implied that Senator John Kerry lacked ”fiscal sanity,” the Bush administration said on Thursday that the federal government had hit the debt ceiling set by Congress and would have to borrow from the civil service retirement system until after the elections.
Federal operations are unlikely to be affected because Congress is certain to raise the debt limit in a lame-duck session in November. Congressional Republicans had wanted to avoid an embarrassing vote to raise the debt ceiling just a few weeks before Election Day.
Since Mr. Bush took office in January 2001, the federal debt has increased about 40 percent, or $2.1 trillion, to $7.4 trillion. Congress has raised the debt ceiling three times in three years, raising it most recently by $984 billion in May 2003.
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• Senate Approves Budget, Breaking Spending Limits (March 16, 2006)
The Senate narrowly approved a $2.8 trillion election-year budget Thursday that broke spending limits only hours after it increased federal borrowing power to avert a government default.
The budget decision at the end of a marathon day of voting followed a separate 52-to-48 Senate vote to increase the federal debt limit by $781 billion, bringing the debt ceiling to nearly $9 trillion. The move left Democrats attacking President Bush and Congressional Republicans for piling up record debt in their years in power.
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• Bush signs sweeping housing bill (July 30, 2008)
President George W. Bush signed into law on Wednesday a huge package of housing legislation that included broad authority for the Treasury Department to safeguard the nationÂ’s two largest mortgage finance companies and a plan to help hundreds of thousands of troubled borrowers avoid losing their homes.
The law authorizes the Treasury to rescue the mortgage finance giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, should they verge on collapse, potentially by spending tens of billions in federal monies. Together, the companies own or guarantee nearly half of the nationÂ’s $12 trillion in mortgages.
To accommodate the rescue plan for the mortgage companies, the bill raises the national debt ceiling to $10.6 trillion, an increase of $800 billion. The bill also creates significant liabilities and risks for taxpayers, that are virtually impossible to calculate.
So the ceiling went from 5.727 Trillion to 10.6 Trillion during Bush's tenure. And the Republicans, with their nose rings, went right along with him...
