[Piercey]

Which party has run us further in to debt? Democrats or Republicans

[excon]

Hello P:

I'm glad you cut your question down from the last 100 years to the last 20...

I'm not sure what you're looking for here, but the truth is that BOTH parties spend uncontrollably when they have the power to do so - and over the last 20 years, BOTH of 'em did.

However, since Bill Clinton had a robust economy, his spending was offset by healthy revenue, so we didn't borrow during his term... George W. Bush, on the other hand, spent like drunken sailor and DIDN'T have a robust economy to provided income to PAY for his spending - so he borrowed a few TRILLION $$$'s.

excon

[ebaines]

However, since Bill Clinton had a robust economy, his spending was offset by healthy revenue, so we didn't borrow during his term...

Sorry - not true. Perhaps you meant to say that we didn't borrow "more" when Clinton was President, but even that isn't correct. The National debt increased every year that Clinton was President. There's a bit of a myth that Clinton ran a budget surplus, but that's not really true. What happened is that he ran a deficit every year, but in his last year the public debt portion of the national debt did go down. Unfortunately that decrease was more than offset by an increase in the intragovernment portion of the debt - in other words they borrowed from Social Security to pay down debt that was owed publicly. That's like paying you credit card bill by borrowing money from your brother, and then claiming that you've reduced your debt. However, to his credit - Clinton's deficits were indeed smaller than W's.

[Mr.Rail]

In the last three and a half decades the Republicans have spent a nauseating amount of money, most of which was wasted on either military programs that failed to bear fruit, or on unnecessary military conflicts. That isn't to say the Democrats are beyond fault, they have surely wasted money as well.