WHERE THE DEBT COMES FROM, in one chart. Note the narrowing gap during Bush’s second term, where we were actually heading toward surplus before the financial crisis, despite Obama’s claim that the debt is all Bush’s fault because of “two wars on the credit card.”

UPDATE: Reader Steve Nelson writes to point out that the deficit only started growing after the new Democratic Congress came in in 2007. “You know, the section of the US government that actually spends the money. . . . This cannot be stressed enough.” Good point.