On Thursday I posted this article to Facebook which supports the headline “Obama Added More to National Debt in First 19 Months Than All Presidents from Washington Through Reagan Combined, Says Gov’t Data“
In a private message someone said to me “you’re conveniently forgetting that Pres. Obama returned the costs of the war into the national debt, where it belongs, unlike W who hid it by taking it out of the books”.
Here is my response:
I can’t find where Bush excluded the war debt from the budget. (Not sure he can do that) It looks like he excluded projections of the cost of the war in 2006 and his final budget (2007) only requested bridge funding to the next administration. These actions were misleading, at best, and very wrong however; that practice wouldn’t impact actual deficits only projected deficits.
The cost of the war according to the CBO is 709 billion spread over 8 years 2003-2010. An average of just over 88 billion/yr. The cost of the bailout alone is 100 billion and projections for healthcare are in excess of 1.6 trillion.
The final Bush deficit (2007) was just under 200 billion. (Democrats owned the purse strings from 2006 and their first fiscal year was 2008 which was just under 500 billion) The first Obama deficit (2010) is just over 1.5 trillion according to CBO projections.
I agree Bush’s excluding projections for the war was wrong but it doesn’t impact the actual numbers.
Am I missing something? Does a president have the authority to “take the war debt off the books”?
I want to be accurate and if I’m missing something please straighten me out.
Filed under: Debt/Deficit , Government Spending
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