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Comment by athinggoingon | Hacker News Reader

Obama added $9.3 trillion to the debt, more than any other president. That's an average of about 1.2 trillion a year.

On January 20, 2009, when he was sworn in, the debt was $10.626 trillion. On January 20, 2017, when he left, it was $19.947 trillion.

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It’s quite convenient to present those numbers without context.

In the context of prior performance and international circumstances, Obama brought the deficit down from the end of the Bush era as a recession began to recover, but the first few years required clear action. Trump, meanwhile, is going to drastically increase the deficit during an economic boom.

It should be obvious that Obama’s deficits were strategically necessarily while Trump’s coming deficit makes no financial sense.

You do realize that most of the deficit is due to massive dip in tax receipts during the Great Recession followed by automatic increase in spending triggered by dramatic rise in unemployment rates. Deficit actually was reduced significantly till Obama’s last year. US economy has been growing over the last 6 years and there is no reason for the deficit to explode in the last 2 years. We should have been looking to reduce deficit during good times so that we can respond to the most vulnerable when going gets tough. We all know there is a recession in the horizon. Imagine how crippled US response will be to the next recession

That's extremely misleading. For one, that includes interest accrued on the already existing debt. For two, that doesn't take into account that when Obama became president we were in a major recession, and combating that was why the deficit ballooned the first few years of his presidency. We're not in a major recession anymore.

For three, the deficit (which is approximately the $1 trillion number being talked about here) for 2017 when Obama left was $666 billion. He averaged around a 1 trillion deficit [0]. The Republican's have increased it from $666 billion (And the even lower projected value) to the $1 trillion talked about here.

[0] https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_deficit_chart.h...

(1) The president doesn't control "the purse", only Congress does (even when it delegates that power to The Executive).

(2) The economy and the federal government were already at all-time highs. Proportionately speaking[1]:

  * Reagan increased the debt by 186% in 8 years,
  * George HW Bush increased it by 54% in 4 years,
  * Clinton increased it 32% in 8 years,
  * George W Bush by 101% in 8 years, and
  * Obama by 68% in 7 years (article not updated to include his last year)

(3) Most federal spending is allocated towards non-discretionary expenses (Social Security and MediCare) and Obama can't any more than Trump can (which is to say they neither can nor will). The growth of health care costs has far outpaced inflation in the USA for 30+ years now

(4) The baby boomer generation began retiring during Obama's tenure, which no other president had to deal with

[1] https://www.thebalance.com/us-debt-by-president-by-dollar-an...

He inherited the Great Recession

What have you heard more of in the past year from the Republican party:

1. Tax Cuts.

2. Fiscal Conservatism.

The focus of the GOP has shifted from fiscal responsibility to "starve the beast"

Instead of replying point by point I now post this:

https://www.quora.com/I-think-that-President-Obama-raised-th...

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