From this it appears that President Reagan was the worst President ever regarding spending and the debt, followed by President GWB. And it intimates that the Democrats are fiscal hawks. Two things aren’t looked at, which are absolute increases in debt, and debt per year. 

Indeed, GorT tackled this last summer. 

Well our friends at freedomworks.org have also added information popping the Democratic balloon as well by adding these two figures:

AND

What these figures add is the reminder that the Congress controls the purse strings and consequently a Republican controlled House of Representatives has been less fiscally irresponsible than a Democrat controlled one. 

Now the Gingrich era in the House appears, by far to be the best with regard to deficits, they had advantages, however. There was Republican control of the Senate. There was a Democrat President who found it more important to be liked than be an ideologue (not that there is anything wrong with being an ideologue, mind you, but BHO can’t change his stripes). And third, there was a crap-load of unexpected money coming in via the tech-boom.

This is what figure 3 above looks like when you stratify by House/Senate control (h/t SBVOR) Just turn it upside down to match it with the others.

Two more things in the Republicans defense. When Newt was replaced by Hastert, the Republican pigs started eating at the trough…resulting in the great purge of 2006. Even Dr. J. muttered under his breath, “A pox on both your houses” when Pelosi took the gavel, hoping to God that Bush would use his veto more than he did. Second, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in the current divided government has effictively played chicken with the house to prevent them from putting too much of a dent in spending. 

The take home message is that Congress continues to spend more than it takes in, but Democrats are far better at it than Republicans. Disciplined Congressional leadership is critical, so local primaries are as critical as the November congressional races. If the Tea Party was born in response to Hastert’s excesses in 2006 rather than Obama’s in 2010, we might not be in as big a pickle as we are in. Dr. J. in part blames a sleeping public (though ‘roofie slipped’ public might be more apt). But as we learned in 2010, the sleeper has awakened (but might be taking a cat nap, given the Republican Presidental Primaries).

Now that Americans understand the issues at hand, Dr. J. hopes that smart decisions up and down the ballot will occur in 2012.