Oh No We Won't!

"You can't blame everything on him. You can't. It's not right."

That statement was uttered a few moments ago by a coworker of mine. Sounds logical - I mean, no one person is responsible for all the troubles in the world, right? Wait for the rest of the statement...

"It's Bush's fault."

Clearly. Good thing that almost three years in and we’re still on that kick.

But wait – there’s more!

"PBS was showing that before Bush it was 6 trillion, after Bush it was 11 trillion, so now that Obama is only at 14 trillion, after you take inflation into account, it's not that bad."

Let's look at those figures a little closer:

Under President Ronald Reagan there were 17 debt ceiling hikes, which took the debt ceiling from $935 billion to $2.8 trillion – A debt ceiling increase of $1.865 trillion -- an average of $109.7 billion each hike.

Under the first President Bush there were six debt ceiling hikes from $2.8 trillion to $4.145 trillion – A debt ceiling increase of $1.345 trillion -- an average of $224.1 billion each hike.

Under Clinton there were four debt ceiling hikes from $4.145 trillion to $5.95 trillion – A debt ceiling increase of $1.805 trillion -- an average of $451.25 billion each hike.

Under the second President Bush there were seven debt ceiling hikes from $5.95 trillion to $11.315 trillion - A debt ceiling increase of $5.365 trillion -- an average of $766.4 billion each hike.

Under Obama there have been three debt ceiling hikes from $11.315 trillion to $14.294 trillion – A debt ceiling increase of $3.144 trillion -- $1.048 trillion each hike.

That is up to now, August 1, 2011. With the likely passage of Obama's next hike, which will be the largest increase in the debt limit in U.S. history by more than $500 billion - surpassing his own record limit increase in 2010, we need to add $2.4 trillion more to the debt ceiling, leaving Obama’s numbers to look a little more like this:

Under Obama: four debt ceiling hikes from $11.315 trillion to $16.694 trillion – A debt ceiling increase of $5.544 trillion -- $1.386 trillion each hike.

A not-so-close look at the numbers reveals that $5.544 trillion is greater than $5.365 trillion, which means that Obama will have raised the debt ceiling more in three years than Bush did in eight.

But sure, that’s not that bad. And clearly, it's all Bush's fault.