Who's to blame for the increasing national debt and deficit

Gee.
















It's clear from this Washington Post figure, which shows how often the debt ceiling was raised ON REQUEST from the White House, that the deficit --

which leveled off during the latter half of the Clinton Administration, helped, yes, by REVENUES (the economy wad doing well at the time) --

really got going and growing larger and larger during the George W. Bush administration, helped by 3 things: the short recession at the beginning of his term, the war on terrorism and two shooting wars, and finally, the Bush TAX CUTS.

It has increased under the Obama administration, yes, mainly due to the necessity to save the global economy (see note below). Which is still not out of the woods, and if the Republican idiot hordes in Congress have their way and don't raise the debt ceiling, they will threaten the stability of the global economy again.

Madness.

From the linked article:

"Had Goldman, Morgan Stanley, GE Capital, AIG and several giant European banks not received bailouts and instead failed, even capital-rich J.P. Morgan Chase would have gone under because it wouldn’t have been able to collect what these and other players owed it. There would have been trillions of dollars in losses, worldwide panic, missed payrolls and quite likely the onset of the Great Depression II. That’s why we needed a bailout. And why we got it."