What are the origins of today's $14 trillion debt? WASHINGTON -
All the sound and fury in Congress over paying what some call
"the nation's credit card bill" raises two obvious questions:
Who ran up the debt, and what were the biggest charges? Given
the government's budget surplus in 2000 -- and the fact that the
administrations both of Presidents George W. Bush, a Republican,
and Barack Obama, a Democrat, added to the debt during every
year they were in office -- the blame falls on both parties,
experts say. The same goes for Congress. Both Republicans and
Democrats controlled Congress at various points over that
decade, with the GOP dominating the U.S. House for most of the
decade other than between 2007 and this January, and Democrats
controlling the Senate since 2007. "Because neither party is
blameless for the decisions that led to this problem, both
parties have a responsibility to solve it," Obama said in a
speech earlier this week. But he also pointed out that his
Republican predecessor had inherited