• All numbers measure changes in debt held by the public, the amount the federal government borrows from the rest of the world.
  • Bush 43 debt increase over two terms: $2.9 T = $6.307 T – $3.410 T
  • $6.307 T = “Debt to the Penny” from Treasury for 20 January 2009.
  • Treasury provides “debt to the penny” but doesn’t go back to 2001, so I used OMB’s number for EOY 2000 from their Historical Table 7-1. That reflects the debt as of 31 December 2000, three weeks before the start of the Bush Administration. It errs just a smidge on the side of overstating the Bush debt increase.
  • Obama debt increase over a hypothetical two Administrations: $7.8 T = $14.121 T – $6.307 T
  • $14.121 T is OMB’s number for debt held by the public at the end of (CY, I think) 2016 under the President’s policies. That’s three weeks before the end of a hypothetical second term, so it errs just a smidge on the side of understating the Obama debt increase.
  • $6.307 T is again Treasury’s number for 20 January 2009 (see the third bullet above).
  • $0.98 T is from Mr. Klein’s chart. The residual, $6.83 T, is the $7.8 T total debt increase projected by the Obama Administration for the President’s policies over a hypothetical two terms, minus the debt increase that Mr. Klein argues results from policies proposed by President Obama and already enacted into law.