Driven by an offline conversation with my dad and the very astute comment by The Old Man, I wondered how much the United States debt had actually grown under "fiscal conservative" President George W. Bush.

It isn't pretty. According to the Treasury Direct (which is a website for the Bureau of Public Debt for the United States' Treasury), when George W. Bush started in 2001, the federal debt was 5,807,463,412,200.06. That is the combined debt of America under the 42 presidents prior to George W. Bush ran up the credit card bill to just under 6 TRILLION dollars.

With still two budgets to go, the current US debt is 8,506,973,899,215.23.

So 42 presidents to spend 6 TRILLION more than we had, but 1 president to spend 2.5 TRILLION alone.

And just so you know, we'll spend 4 BILLION dollars servicing the interest on this debt next year alone. Imagine what domestic or international programs that money could go to instead. Or how 4 billion dollars might feel back in the pockets of taxpayers.

The next president will have to clean up this mess. Please remember, don't blame him. This was George's party. The Democrats are just going to be the responsible ones waking up the drunks and telling them to go home the next morning.

In case you want the year-by-year breakdown -