The deficit as of this second: $15,862,417,999,098.
Via Big Government:
Give Barack Obama points for consistency: he has always blamed Bush for the economy, even when it was humming along. In April 2003, Obama, then a state senator, attacked George Bush’s “attack on working families.” He called on Bush to “fix up the economy first” before he did anything else, like tax cuts. (Chinta Strausberg, “Obama to Bush: Fix up U.S. Budget First,” Chicago Defender, April 15, 2003).
Obama was particularly incensed by those tax cuts, telling the Chicago Defender, “If you don’t make $300,000 or more, you won’t benefit from this tax break.” He continued: “In the meantime, the tax cuts will create perpetual deficits and further depress an already bad economy. It will also prevent the funding of education programs, the job training programs that could put people back to work.”
Given the bad economy in 2003, Obama predicted that Bush would only be re-elected thanks to his “spin-masters, who are very good on focusing the public’s attention on the war in Iraq, and they will do their best to keep the focus away from the economic disaster that is occurring in our communities.”