If I remember correctly, is was an unpaid for war in Iraq that had something to do with the debt, amongst many other factors creating the situation facing whoever took over in '09. Of course, it's easier to, as Larry David put in one of his Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes, "blame the black man". It's amazing how the guy who inherited the largest surplus in U.S. history and turned it into the largest (up to that time) deficit isn't held responsible for doing so by a certain kind of person.