Who Do Voters Blame for Huge National Debt?

At the time of this writing, the US debt was just over $19.85 trillion and climbing higher every second. That equates to $165,500 per taxpayer or $61,129 per US citizen. How many of us have that kind of money to pay off the national debt?

When you see outrageous figures like this, who do you blame for the high US debt?

Do you blame Barack Obama? Depending on what source you use, it seems that under his tenure in the White House, the US debt increased by around $8 trillion (some sources say $9 trillion).

Do you blame former President George W. Bush? Under his watch, the debt increased by close to $6 trillion.

What about former President Franklin D. Roosevelt, do you blame him? He is credited with the largest percentage increase of the national debt with an increase of 1,048%, even though he only added $236 billion to the debt.

Former President Woodrow Wilson increased the national debt by 727% while he was president, by adding a whopping $21 billion. Is he the one you blame?

Do you blame Democrats? Obama, Roosevelt and Wilson are/were Democrats, but Bush is a Republican. Do you blame Republicans? According to one source, the average increase of the national debt under Republican presidents in general was 7.9%. The average increase of the national debt under Democrat presidents in general was 9.3%.

Personally, if asked, I lay the blame of the high national debt on all of Washington’s career politicians. They are more interested in lining their pockets and filling their campaign coffers with special interest money that comes from using taxpayer money to fund hundreds of pet projects.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve shared a number of stories on how our federal government wastes taxpayer dollars. We’ve heard about the government spending our taxpayer dollars to study things like:

• $15.3 million for one of the infamous Bridges to Nowhere in Alaska.
• $113,227 for video game preservation center in New York.
• $550,000 for a documentary about how rock music contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
• $48,700 for 2nd annual Hawaii Chocolate Festival, to promote Hawaii’s chocolate industry.
• $350,000 to support an International Art Exhibition in Venice, Italy.
• $10 million for a remake of “Sesame Street” for Pakistan.
• $35 million allocated for political party conventions in 2012.
• $765,828 to subsidize “pancakes for yuppies” in the nation’s capital.
• $764,825 to study how college students use mobile devices for social networking.
• $876,752 spent to study snail sex.
• $585,000 for a one-night stay in a Paris hotel for Vice President Joe Biden.
• Over $100 million for the many many Obama vacations which includes Michelle’s mom.
• $384,949 to study duck penises.
•  $194,788 to study how transgender women (is that an oxymoron?) use Facebook and how that use affects their chances of getting HIV.
• $3 million to fund a study to see if the theme music from Jaws gives sharks a bad reputation.
• $3.5 million to fund a study that discovered that the fear of pain is a critical reason why many Americans don’t go to the dentist.

Evidently, most voters feel the same way. According to a recent poll:

“Voters want budget cuts, but most also recognize that politicians will be hard to sell on the idea.”

“Seventy percent (70%) of Likely U.S. Voters believe the unwillingness of politicians to cut government spending is more to blame for the size of the federal deficit than taxpayer’s unwillingness to pay more in taxes.”

That probably played a major role in the election of Donald Trump to the White House. America needs a Congress full of successful business men and women who know what it means to work within a budget and who are willing to make the painful cuts to government spending that is so badly needed. It’s time to clean House and Senate of the career politicians.