Letter to the Editor: Take another look at debt blame
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In a recent letter titled "Stop the Bleeding" a local resident claimed that America's current debt of $40 trillion is "mostly on Republicans" and cited Reagan, Bush and Trump as the worst culprits.
Setting aside for a moment the gross oversimplification of this inflammatory statement, a 15-second Google search shows us that his claim simply isn't true.
With the midterm elections upon us, we're probably going to be hearing a lot about this subject in the coming weeks and it would be a good idea to digest it all in a context of accurate information.
First of all -- and this may be the most important point in any discussion about this subject -- there are major elements of debt accumulation that are simply baked into the equation before ANY new president even serves their first day in office.
Again, according to Google:
"A substantial portion of ongoing debt growth is driven by mandatory entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, alongside rising interest payments on existing national debt;" although, this might be a good time to remind the letter writer that the Social Security Act was signed into law by a Democrat in 1935 (FDR) and Medicare was signed into law by another Democrat in 1965 (LBJ).
Interest on the debt is also now a full $1 trillion annually, which gets added to each president's total.
By raw numbers, the two greatest offenders of all time are Obama (D) and Biden (D), who combined for $17.7 trillion worth, followed closely by Trump (R) and Bush the Younger (R) at a combined $16.5 trillion.
Bringing up the rear are Reagan at $1.7 trillion and Clinton at $1.4 trillion.
So, as you can see, despite the author's claims, it's virtually a dead heat, although again, both major "entitlements" were created by Democrats.
The simple fact is, neither party has been particularly responsible fiscally and a large part of the blame rests with "we the people," because we demand certain things.
Steve Devereaux
Belpre