One certainly has to love all the hyperventilating going on in the wingnuttosphere over today’s revelation that the national debt climbed past $12 trillion.

Yes, that’s a very bad, scary, unsustainable number but it doesn’t tell anywhere near the whole story. Click on this image to see how increases to the national debt have grown and shrunk over the last half-century:
Shown another way:
And finally, I think this chart and explanation provides another valuable perspective:

Note the two huge mountains of increasing national debt in this picture. One began with the Reagan administration and went on for the 12 years of Reagan and Bush I presidencies. Then following 8 years of precipitous decrease in the rate of debt accumulation, the onset of the Bush II presidency was marked by another, even more precipitous increase in debt accumulation than was the Reagan presidency. In other words, where we have seen huge tax reductions for the wealthy we have concurrently seen huge increases in our national debt, with no compensatory rise (and even a slowing) of median income.

It’s more than a little odd to see Republicans rediscover their outrage about deficits, debt, and the burdens of future generations. It was, after all, George W. Bush who added $5 trillion to the debt, after inheriting a quarter-trillion-dollar surplus from the Clinton era, which generated exactly zero criticism from GOP members of Congress.

Indeed, the entire political dynamic of the debate is bizarre. The Bush administration and congressional Republicans supported two costly wars, and added every penny to the debt, becoming the first party in American history to finance military conflicts entirely on credit. These same GOP officials expanded Medicare and created No Child Left Behind, and made literally no effort to pay for either.

And after their policies helped create the most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression, making increased spending and deficits an absolute necessity, Republicans feel comfortable making demands about fiscal responsibility? Seriously?

“I would love to hear how the Republican plan for slashing the deficit and tackling the debt will work. I’m interested in how capital gains tax cuts, making the Bush cuts permanent, ending the ‘death tax,’ continuing the prescription drug plan while ignoring the rising costs of health care, permanent war in the Middle East and privatizing Social Security are going to bring our books back into the black. I’m all ears, guys.”