Way back in August, Jim Geraghty predicted that the day total public debt added by President Barack Obama would equal the total public debt added by President George W. Bush would be the Ides of March 2012:
When the debt increases another $877,587,378,565.23 ($877.58 billion), the debt accumulated under Obama’s presidency will equal the debt accumulated under Bush’s two terms.
Obviously, this can change, but barring some sudden shift in the federal government’s borrowing and spending habits, this milestone will be reached in 206 days from August 23, 2011. That would be March 15, 2012.
Beware the Ides of March.
Guess what? He nailed it. The Treasury Department’s Debt to the Penny web app lists the debt as of the Ides of March as:
- Debt Held by the Public: $10,114,556,380.32
- Intragovernmental Holdings: $4,744,695,335,387.67
- Total Public Debt Outstanding: $15,564,809,891,767.99
The $4,937,931,842,854.91 in new total debt added under Obama’s watch, in a mere 1,150 days, is more than the $4,899,100,310,608.44 in new total debt added under Bush’s watch in 2,922 days.
If you prefer to just look at publicly-held debt, Obama broke the Bush record of $2.889 trillion in new publicly-held debt…back on the Ides of November 2010, and barely slowed down since. That total is now $4.512 trillion.
So, how did Obama celebrate? It probably would have been better had he gone to Disney World, but instead, he set another personal record of six fundraisers in a day, ignoring a whole host of indicators of hard times to gather cash for himself.
Revisions/extensions (10:15 pm 3/16/2012) – Doug Powers caught a gem from Vice President Joe Biden.
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