redblueamerica.com

Robert Reich frames the Bush Era of fiscal irresponsibility:

Despite the $5 trillion 10-year budget surplus that ended the Clinton years, the federal debt at the end of the Bush years will be almost $4 trillion larger than it was then. It will have grown about 70 percent during Bush's reign. If you assume 5 percent interest, the Bush debt burden will require the government to pay its creditors -- prominent among them, the Japanese and Chinese -- $200 billion a year, forever.

I know our resident conservatives here at RedBlue aren't fans of President Bush, necessarily, but this explosion of debt was aided and abetted (until one year ago) by Republican congress. It's a broad-based failure that has left the country in worse shape.