How Much Will Obama Raise The Debt

I think that President Obama raised the national debt by $9.3 trillion. How can anyone say he did a good job as president?

There are several things one has to remember when discussing the increased debt from FY “09 to FY ’17.On September 30, 2008 (last day of FY 08) the national debt was at 9.2 trillion dollars. Let’s remember this was 112 days prior to Obama taking office. During those 112 days America was in the middle of the 2nd largest economic collapse in US history. On January 21st 2009 the US national debt was at $10.6 trillion dollars. That’s an addition of $1.4 trillion that many on the right are charging to President Obama that was incurred before he even took office.Between Jan. 21, 2009 and the end of FY 10 (21 months) there was $3.9 trillion added to the debt which were expenses for expenses incurred before Obama took office. Including the actual cost of the two theater war which began in the fall of 2001 that Bush II had kept “off book” that Obama placed ON the books. Plus the costs of bank and corporate bailouts due to the economic collapse incurred during the previous administration.Federal dollars given to states to help alleviate unemployment benefits and well as the federal SNAP program, due to the millions of jobs lost during the economic collapse.Medicare cost mainly attributed to an aging population have attributed to $1.1 trillion in the national debt since FY ’09.Following FY ’11 the national debt began growing at a slower rate. This was due to 3 items. 1) Loan paybacks from GM and Chrysler, as well as an Energy department project investing in renewable energy manufacturing. (yes this was the program which began in 2005 under the GWB admin and remains today. This is the same program which received guff for the Solyandra bankruptcy. However, what many have not heard is that beginning in 2012 this program for the first time ever made a profit from repayment of loans given out during FY 2009/10.Beginning in 2013 the debt began growing at an even slower rate when the Unemployment rate dropped at a faster rate and more tax dollars came in.In FY 2016 the national debt grew $546 billion dollars. The lowest growth in the debt since FY 2005. In FY 2017 the debt grew $644 billion, an increase in the growth rate of nearly $100 billion. FY 2017 was the first year the debt growth rate grew from the previous year for the first time since FY 2012.The largest contributor of the national debt since FY ’05 has been decreased tax revenue following the tax cuts enacted in 2003.

How much did Obama add to the national debt?

On October 1st, 2001, the first day of Bush’s 1st Budget, our debt was $5.8 Trillion Dollars. On September 30th, 2009 the last day of Bush’s Last Budget, our debt was $11.65 Trillion, meaning that Bush added $5.85 Trillion or slightly more than DOUBLING our Debt.On October 1st, 2009, the first day of Obama’s 1st Budget, our debt was $11.65 Trillion Dollars. And on September 30th, 2017 the last day of Obama’s Last Budget, our debt was $20 Trillion, meaning that Obama added $8.35 Trillion or in other words, he increased our debt by 71.67%Recent other Presidents had the following results: Reagan TRIPLED our Debt between his Tax Cuts to the Wealthy and Spending like a Drunken Sailor, even more than before the tax cuts, which is why our Debt TRIPLED. GHW Bush in just 4 years, increased our debt by 68%, almost as much as Obama did in 8 years. Clinton, the first president since LB Johnson, to have a budget surplus, and he ended his presidency with 4 consecutive budget surpluses, to only increase our debt by 37%.I think I’m seeing a PATTERN here, Republicans cut taxes AND increase spending, so our debt goes way up under Republicans while Democrats Raise taxes (ON THE WEALTHY) & CUT spending. So when Republicans occupy the White House, our debt goes WAY UP, and when the Democrats are in the White House, our debt doesn’t go up so fast.Trump was predicted to increase the debt by $10 Trillion, BEFORE THE Republican TAX CUT, NOW he is on schedule to increase by $11.5 Trillion in 8 years, compared to Obama’s $8.35 Trillion. And that assumes that there aren’t other increases in spending.

Obama has nearly doubled the US national debt while claiming to reduce the deficit by about 70%. How is this possible?

Debt and deficit are two different things. Debt is what you owe, deficit is what you lose annually. If you win every year, it’s called a surplus. Your annual deficit is added to your debt while a surplus would be deducted.If your debt is already high, then you will have to pay a high interest annually. The interest becomes part of your deficit, so it is added to your debt. So once your debt has grown, it becomes difficult to reduce it. But really keep you eyes on the deficit, that is what matters.Actually you should look at your deficit relative to your GDP, Gross Domestic Product. That is because if your GDP grows a lot, should you be so lucky, it doesn’t really matter that much when your deficit or your debt grows a little bit. Your debt relative to GDP can fall even if the debt is rising. And that is fine.So both claims are right, the debt has risen, and it will keep rising as long as there is a federal deficit. It will only fall when there is a surplus.Do you demand a surplus?The current deficit is estimated to be around 3% of the GDP in 2016 (2.5% in 2015). In the last of Bush’s budgets the deficit was 9.8% of the GDP. This was in 2009 (the departing president leaves a budget for the coming president).So it has been reduced substantially during Obama’s presidency. Actually it was reduced every year, except between 2015 and 2016. I am not sure who should be credited for it (the congress has a say in the budget). But there is still a deficit (only Bill Clinton produced a surplus in recent years), and therefore the debt grows.Do keep a keen eye on the federal deficit (relative to GDP) from now on. That is a very good idea.

Why did the US debt grow so much during Obama's presidency?

The ``Great Recession'' went from December 2007 to June 2009. It was given that name because of how bad it was. It was the worst since WW-II. I don't know about before that. That recession left us with a very large unemployment rate (see: Civilian Unemployment Rate ). A result of that was a huge drop in Federal tax receipts (see: Federal government current tax receipts ) and a huge federal budget deficit (see: Federal Surplus or Deficit [-]). Huge deficits result in big increases in national debt.To help the country recover from that, Obama and Congress launched an economic stimulus package. The extra spending that stimulus required combined with the recession-caused reduction in government revenue (e.g. taxes) resulted in maintaining a high deficit for a while but, as the economy recovered, the deficit recovered. It had dropped to less than a third of its post-recession value by the end of Obama's second term.The grey areas in the following graphs correspond to The Great Recession. See Great Recession - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com and Great Recession - Wikipedia.