I'm always amazed when I see 2000 on that chart. Only $18 Billion deficit. We were almost in the black, almost paying down our debt. Imagine having children who wouldn't be born with $30-40,000 in debt stamped on their foreheads. Imagine the future actually getting better. Clinton balances the budget, and the Bushes are collectively responsible for 5 all-time-record deficit years. Well, 6 if you count the spending in 2009 that was basically the cost of cleanup after Bush trashed the country's economy with his regulatory narcolepsy. (Yep, that's right--the debt for the 2009 stimulus isn't Obama's fault. To say it is would be like saying a train conductor who brings a train up to 80 mph careening towards a cement wall, and then at the last minute hands over the controls to a new conductor, isn't responsible for the crash. Bush caused this, and all of you "conservatives" who slept peacefully at the wheel from 2000-2008 are right there with him. McCain also would have done a huge stimulus plan, right or wrong, because it's the only damn idea anyone has in the face of the 2007-08 catastrophe.)Sheesh, you don't have to become a democrat, but it's amazing any fiscal conservative calls themselves a republican anymore.