Mountains Of Debt

Maybe you have to be Greece before most people get seriously concerned about sovereign debt. Of all the good reasons to evict Barack Obama from the presidency in November, the most fundamental is that he is spending our country into financial ruin. I don’t think most Americans understand how much federal spending and debt have risen during the Obama administration (and even before it, when Democrats took control of Congress in 2007) and are projected to rise in the future under Obama’s budget proposal. These two charts, from the Senate Budget Committee, tell the story in a very simple way. This one shows the federal debt per household from 2000 through 2022; the numbers are actual to the present and thereafter represent the projections in Obama’s FY 2013 budget. Those projections are taken at face value, rosy assumptions and all. Still, the picture is staggering:

You can see how the increase in debt accelerates beginning in 2009, when Obama took office.

This one shows federal spending over the same period of time, once again taking the future numbers directly from Barack Obama’s own budget plan:

Why do we have too much debt? It’s no mystery; we have too much spending. I don’t know why the Republicans can’t make better use of simple graphics like these to show voters how extreme President Obama’s policies are.

Michael Ramirez weighs in on the debt crisis with a cartoon that is particularly appropriate on Washington’s birthday:

UPDATE: Here is another one, hot off the press: it shows each American’s share of the national debt, by age group. Children born today will be responsible for over $1.5 million in debt, according to the government’s long-term fiscal projections. You can go here to calculate your share of the national debt.

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