At the end of 2008 — the year President Obama was elected —our national debt was $9.986 trillion. It’s now $15.542 trillion and counting — a increase of $5.556 trillion, or 56 percent, in just over three years.  With that staggering — and unparalleled — record of fiscal profligacy in mind, let’s compare Obama’s suggested course over the next decade (2013 through 2022) to the path proposed by House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan.   

Obama proposes to have the federal government spend $45.4 trillion in taxpayer money (much of it borrowed) over the next decade — ramping up federal spending from $3.6 trillion last year to $5.6 trillion ten years from now — while Ryan proposes to have the federal government spend 12 percent less than that.  That amounts to a difference between the two budgets of $5.3 trillion — or $5,300,000,000,000.00.  That’s about $17,000 per American, or $68,000 for a family of four.