Chart Of The Day: America's Debt Crisis - Who Really Is Responsible?

Chart Of The Day: America's Debt Crisis - Who Really Is Responsible?

by Tyler Durden

Yesterday we brought you the news that US debt quietly soared by $90 billion overnight to celebrate the new fiscal year end, reaching $16.2 trillion and sending total US debt to GDP to 103%. Needless to say, this comes at an exciting time, with the first Wall Street muppet presidential debate in about 12 hours, where the US debt crisis will be a front and center topic because in about 2 months, the US debt ceiling will again be breached adding to the Fiscal Cliff fiasco, resulting in a flashback to August 2011 when the market had to tumble by nearly 20% for Congress to get the hint that first and foremost its job is to make sure the money on Wall Street keeps flowing, all else secondary. And while it has become fashionable to say that US debt rose by this much under that president, the truth is that the Presidency is merely one of three institutions that are responsible for the shape of the US debt-to-GDP line (which is now going from the lower left to the upper right by default). The other two are, of course, Congress and the Senate. Luckily, to simply things substantially, we have a handy graphic from today's Bloomberg Brief which conveniently plots not only the political affiliation of the presidency, but of the House and Senate, in the chronology of the US debt crisis. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-10-03/chart-day-americas-debt-crisis-who-really-responsible