John wrote:

"Dennis O'Connor" wrote in message ...

John it sounds to me like you will be happy whichever big party controls the
oval orifice becasue they both intend to spend their way to relection...
denny

I always thought that neither governments nor families should go into
debt or live beyond their means. It is disappointing that neither
party is focused on managing the debt, as this will create much bigger
problems in the future.

Neither party may be sufficiently focused on it, but there's been a
substantial difference between Republican and Democratic administrations in
this regard. Since WWII, Republican presidents have been in office for 31
years and during their terms the national debt has increased an average of
9.1% per year; Democrats have been in office 27 years and the debt has
grown at a much smaller 3.7% per years during their terms. There's a huge
difference between a growth rate of under 4% compared to over 9%.

Just looking at more recent administrations, the debt grew about 14% per
year under Ford, slowed to 9%/yr under Carter before rising back to 14%/yr
under Reagan and 12%/yr under Bush Sr. Under Clinton's administration the
debt growth steadily slowed with the average being 4%/yr and only 0.3% his
last year. Bush Jr.'s administration has reversed that trend and pushed the
rate of growth of the debt back up to 7% per year. In Clinton's last year
in office the debt grew by $18 billion, in 2003 the debt grew by about $460
billion.