Candidates Corner - The National Debt

Candidates' Corner is an opportunity for all presidential candidates from all parties to comment on some of the top issues facing the next president of the United States. Candidates are invited to respond to the question of the week in the comments of this post, identifying themselves and their party in the first line of their responses.

This week's question addresses a problem that no president since Andrew Jackson has dealt with completely -- the national debt. It took almost 200 years, from 1789 to 1982, for the US government to accumulate a debt of one trillion dollars. When the winner of the 2008 US presidential election takes office, during Fiscal Year 2009, that debt will exceed ten trillion dollars, according to the Office of Management and Budget. FY2006 will contribute around 400 billion dollars to that total, with the federal government spending 2.7 trillion dollars and taking 2.3 trillion dollars from American taxpayers.