Reagan 189.0%
Bush 43 89.0%
Bush 41 51.6%
Carter 42.6%
Clinton 36.0%
Obama 34.0%
OK let me firstly say that I am in no way doing this to support republicans but the numbers seemed kinda fishy and misleading so I crunched some numbers and would like to point out a shortfall in the stats.
Also I’m not a mathematician so someone point me out if I am wrong, pretty please.
Percentages mean very little when compared directly over time, because a high percentage BEFORE the debt has been hiked 4-5 times will mean a lot less than small percentage after the debt is already super crazy high. In other words, the percentage increase over time SHOULD naturally go down, because increasing the % of a 1 Trillion dollar debt as compared to a 1 Billion dollar debt takes a LOT more spending. Imagine the debt was 999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999, I think we all would be super pissed with even a 1% increase. I don’t know exactly how inflation would play into this because I’m not an economy master but here are my numbers:
Let’s assume the debt before Carter was $1 (LOL, RIGHT?), just to make things easy for me mathematically. With the real #’s it will just be much more drastic than my hypothetical ones.
Pres % inc Running debt Amount difference?
PRIOR TO CARTER $1 ———
Carter 42.6% $42.60 $42.60
Reagan 189% $123,11 $80.51
Bush41 51.6% $186.63 $63.52
Clinton 36% $253.82 $67.19
Bush43 89% $479.72 $225.90
Obama 34% $642.82 $163.10
When we take into account what these numbers really mean, and account for the running increase in debt (which proportionally affects how much the % really counts) we see the real professional spenders in this are Bush 43 and Obama. So a Reagan difference of 189% (since the debt was much smaller back than) is almost 3x less than the spending that occurred from the Bush43 reign, which was statistically 100% less and more than 2x less than Obama at 34%.
Oops, misleading stats ftl. Also comparing this knowing Carter, Bush41, and Obama have only 1 term under their belts is pretty unfair. Given 2 terms, their numbers would be higher. I feel like I’m back in statistics class. Again, someone point me out if I did something wrong.
