Nominal Comparisons

Attention Nominal Comparisons of Obama National Debt Figures: Get Real

The conservative blogosphere (with the help of Drudge) is busy citing a story put out by CNSNews’ Terence Jeffrey, whose headline reads: “Obama Added More to National Debt in First 19 Months Than All Presidents from Washington Through Reagan Combined, Says Gov’t Data.”

Unfortunately, this type of simplistic analysis suffers from two major problems:

(1) The implication that the entire increase in the debt since January 20, 2009 is Obama’s fault is ridiculous.

(2) Budget numbers today are larger in nominal terms as a result of inflation, which means you can do this analysis for almost any modern-day president
Continuing on (2), let’s do the same type of analysis for Bush and Reagan:
In his first two years in office (2003 debt amount less 2001 debt amount), Bush increased the national debt by more than all the presidents from Washington through Carter’s 3rd year combined.

In his first two years in office (1995 debt less 1993 debt), Clinton increased the national debt by more than all the presidents from Washington through Nixon combined.
In his first two years in office (1983 debt amount less 1981 debt amount), Reagan increased the national debt by more than all the presidents from Washington through Nixon combined.

(h/t rjsigmund)