| Council Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Michigan, Near Detroit Posts: 1,029 Level up: 50%, 101 Points needed |  |  Quote:
Originally Posted by RidinHighSpeeds  Why is this number meaningless?? Is it meaningless because Democrats only look good when you look at the numbers measured as a percentage of GDP?
I always hear about the national debt clock that's always rising, but when I talk about the national debt which rose every year during the Clinton Administration, it's now a completely different story?? | As I had explained in my previous posts, it is meaningless because of inflation. Using raw dollar numbers, the debt may never go down, but the ultimate value of the debt is still reduced because dollars aren't worth as much as they used to be.
The national debt did not rise under Clinton. Only the number of dollars rose. The actual value of the debt decreased. If you want to know the difference between Clinton's spending habits and Republican spending habits, simply look at the graph I provided.
Or, if you still don't like that, I took the numbers you provided and roughly calculated the percentage increase of the debt each year. Here are the results:
7.2 - 2006
7.4 - 2005
8.9 - 2004
8.9 - 2003
7.3 - 2002
2.3 - 2001
0.3 - 2000
2.4 - 1999
2.1 - 1998
3.6 - 1997
5.0 - 1996
6.0 - 1995
6.4 - 1994
8.5 - 1993
10.9 - 1992
13.4 - 1991
13.2 - 1990
9.8 - 1989
10.7 - 1988
I hope this makes things clear. -Jaxian |