August 12, 2010 3:34PM 

# ‘Mountain of Debt’ 

By [Tad DeHaven](https://www.cato.org/people/tad-dehaven) 

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The White House [Office of Management and Budget](http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/) homepage currently features the following quote from the president:

![Media Name: 201008_blog_dehaven121.jpg](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/pubs_2x/public/wp-content/uploads/201008_blog_dehaven121.jpg?itok=SrYx8yLC) 

President Obama says he wants to “invest in our people without leaving them a mountain of debt.”

That’s a curious statement because the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of the president’s current budget proposal projects that publicly held debt as a share of the economy would reach levels last seen at the end of the Second World War.

When the CBO’s numbers are plugged into a bar chart, the projected Obama debt levels (red bars) look like…the upward slope of a mountain (!):

![Media Name: 201008_blog_dehaven122.jpg](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/pubs_2x/public/wp-content/uploads/201008_blog_dehaven122.jpg?itok=yCsXYS8H) 

To be fair, Obama’s predecessors — particularly the previous Bush administration — share in the responsibility for the mountainous rise in federal debt. However, that’s all the more reason for the Obama administration to work toward a peak instead of a steeper incline.

##### Related Tags 

[General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy) 

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