extra debt that we are piling up will ... .... continue the Ponzi scheme that we're engaged in.But public debt is not piling up-- it's being reduced (re your graph and your data). By all accounts it's lower than it was in the '90's which was lower than it was in the '40's. You might argue that there are some ways to calculate debt that come out higher than last year, but to say current policy is a 'Ponzi scheme' is like saying the '90's was a nuclear holocaust.
I don't thing anybody here's saying Clinton was that bad.
But public debt is not piling up-- it's being reduced (re your graph and your data). By all accounts it's lower than it was in the '90's which was lower than it was in the '40's. You might argue that there are some ways to calculate debt that come out higher than last year... According to the the most recent budget that you reference above, the gross federal debt and the debt held by the public increased as a percentage of GDP from 2003 to 2004 and were projected to increase from 2004 to 2005. That budget was released in February and more recent projections can be obtained from an August update from the CBO. Following is a graph showing the projected debt levels from that report:
The actual numbers and sources can be seen at http://home.att.net/~rdavis2/cbobud05.html. The report projects that, if the tax cuts and the reform of AMT (the Alternate Minimum Tax) are extended, the gross debt will rise steadily from 64% of GDP in 2004 to 81% of GDP in 2015.
