This is pretty staggering. According to this editorial in The San Fran Chronicle, Bush and Congress have borrowed more money than all previous presidents combined.
So much for the small government Republicans. How the hell can we make it another three years with this guy in office?
Unfortunately not all Republicans are fiscal conservatives as I believe they should be. You've inspired me to take a look at the budget and lean on Murtha, Santorum, and Specter to cut some of the crap out of non-security spending, I'm sure there's plenty of entitlement programs that can be scrapped.
However, to Bush's credit, the deficit as a percentage of the GDP is declining and expected to continue declining, thanks to increased spending restraints and a growing economy. He intends to cut the budget in half by 2009 while keeping taxes low, so we'll have to see how that turns out.
While I agree the number is staggering, it is not 100% true. Bush borrowing 1.5 trillion is a lot different than George Washington borrowing 1.5 trillion. This is the same sort of BS the movie industry throws in our faces. Of course the box office record is going to be broken all the time, ticket prices keep going up and their measurement of success is on $$ rather than tickets sold. I think it would be interresting to see approximate number of tickets per movie (extrapolating the # of tickets using the gross money & average ticket price). Granted, that would be off, but still fun to see.
Man did I digress... back on topic. I am sure that Bush will still be in the lead if you take the previous president's spending and factor in inflation to make all $$ values on a level playing field. I just doubt Bush would be ahead of everyone else, combind.