People are worried about America's solvency

Re:People are worried about America's solvency by fluidcruft on Monday August 17, 2026 @08:43AM (#49329931)

    Democrats          Change in Deficit
    ---------          -----------------
    Joe Biden              -6.1% GDP
    Barack Obama           -6.4% GDP
    Bill Clinton           -5.0% GDP
    Jimmy Carter           -0.2% GDP

    Republicans        Change in Deficit
    -----------        -----------------
    Donald Trump           +8.6% GDP
    George W. Bush        +11.0% GDP
    George H. W. Bush      +1.1% GDP
    Ronald Reagan          +0.2% GDP
    Gerald Ford            +2.3% GDP
    Richard Nixon          +0.7% GDP
    Dwight Eisenhower      -1.1% GDP

via ChatGPT which among other things verified the original table. I didn't bother with inflation adjustment since it's normalized by GDP.

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Re:People are worried about America's solvency by root-parent on Monday August 17, 2026 @09:51AM (#49330877)

  Change in U.S. Gross Federal Debt

(fiscal-year-end figures, not inauguration-to-inauguration)

  Democrats
  ---------------------------------------------------
  President             Start       End       Change
  ---------------------------------------------------
  Joe Biden            $28.386T   $37.375T   +$8.989T
  Barack Obama         $11.876T   $20.206T   +$8.330T
  Bill Clinton          $4.351T    $5.770T   +$1.419T
  Jimmy Carter          $0.706T    $0.995T   +$0.288T

  Republicans
  ---------------------------------------------------
  President             Start       End       Change
  ---------------------------------------------------
  Donald Trump         $20.206T   $28.386T   +$8.180T
  George W. Bush        $5.770T   $11.876T   +$6.106T
  George H.W. Bush      $2.868T    $4.351T   +$1.483T
  Ronald Reagan         $0.995T    $2.868T   +$1.873T
  Gerald Ford           $0.484T    $0.706T   +$0.223T
  Richard Nixon         $0.366T    $0.484T   +$0.118T
  Dwight Eisenhower     $0.266T    $0.293T   +$0.027T

Source: https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/information-resources/budget/...

These are changes between fiscal-year endpoints, not the exact amount of debt incurred during each president's time in office.Fiscal years do not line up with inauguration dates.

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Re:People are worried about America's solvency by smallmancontrov on Monday August 17, 2026 @08:51AM (#49330026)

Good call, normalizing to GDP instead of deficit fixes the flip into/out of surplus problem. Also, now that aggro "cite your sources" guy ran, it's probably worth duplicating the cite here:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/information-resources/budget/...

Despite being witehouse.gov, I am pleased to see that this is one page that Trump has not yet updated to read "Republicans Rule Democrats Drool" over an editorialized fever dream replacing inconvenient data. Grab it while it lasts, and let's hope that accounting remains boring enough to repel such attention!

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Re:People are worried about America's solvency by FrustratedMonky on Monday August 17, 2026 @09:22AM (#49330418)

There is theory that debt drives GDP. The more debt, the more money in circulation, more GDP.

So cutting debt, cuts GDP.

Also. Not sure GDP is completely normalized verses inflation.

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Re:People are worried about America's solvency by fluidcruft on Monday August 17, 2026 @11:05AM (#49332234)

I'm no expert about anything related to this but the obvious fact that the size of the debt as proportion of GDP has consistently increased since Reagan first implemented this scheme suggests it's pretty obvious these GDP gains do not offset increased debt (and that this is causative).

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Re:People are worried about America's solvency by FrustratedMonky on Monday August 17, 2026 @11:29AM (#49332653)

Not offset.

Other way around.

Debt comes from spending, that spending is on stuff, which drives GDP.

So whole concept that we could reduce debt by increasing GDP and tax it, is not how the money actually flows.

This is why in economic downturns, often the best solution is more debt, by more spending. And trying to fix economy by 'austerity' makes things worse.

Of course, also I don't know solution, or what the 'right size' debt should be. Just that it isn't black/white.

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Re:People are worried about America's solvency by fluidcruft on Monday August 17, 2026 @04:03PM (#49336764)

It makes sense that spending stimulates GDP in the short term. The consequences of debt are delayed. The argument that people tried to make in the past was that spending can stimulate growth so much that growth ultimately overshadows debt. That was controversial 50 years ago but at this point it doesn't seem like it's working out as expected since debt has been doing nothing except steadily increase relative to GDP. Sometimes it's valid to accept that failed experiments are failures.

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Re:People are worried about America's solvency by marcusverus on Monday August 17, 2026 @09:55AM (#49330958)

This is nonsensical. Debt-to-GDP over the course of an entire term is what matters. Debt was 77% of GDP when Obama took office and >102% when he left. The "change in deficit" is a useless measure.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S

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Re:People are worried about America's solvency by fluidcruft on Monday August 17, 2026 @09:58AM (#49331028)

    Democrats          Change In Debt/GDP
    -----------        ------------------
    Joe Biden                 +0.1 pp
    Barack Obama             +22.2 pp
    Bill Clinton              -9.4 pp
    Jimmy Carter              -3.1 pp

    Republicans        Change In Debt/GDP
    -----------        ------------------
    Donald Trump             +18.9 pp
    George W. Bush           +27.3 pp
    George H. W. Bush        +12.6 pp
    Ronald Reagan            +19.8 pp
    Gerald Ford               +2.3 pp
    Richard Nixon             -4.7 pp
    Dwight Eisenhower        -16.1 pp

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