I think assigning blame to one party -- when both parties created the mess -- for the current financial crisis is not fair. 

As for the transition -- Obama's selection of people with "Clinton" ties should not be surprising.  Clinton's problems as president were not because of his appointments, it was because of himself.

The chart shows that Clinton didn't have a war in the budget and it does show that the surplus peaked under him and then started the downward decline back toward a deficit under him.

My read of the chart is that the surplus started to decline in 2001 -- it hit its peak in 2000.  This is not chart showing the state of the economy, which, if I remember correctly was in a slight recession (or trending toward one) when Clinton left office.

Clinton never erased the deficit. All he did was balance the budget so the government was taking in more than it was spending. Thus lowering the deficit. It would have taken many more years of a balanced budget to totally eradicate the it.

Of course Bush undid all that in a matter of 3 or 4 years. Nothing like lowering taxes and then spending more than any president in history.

QUOTE: Remove the costs associated to 9/11 and the war from the chart

Why?  The war is precisely one of the reasons for the deficit, and it was started by the Bush administration and without any direct link to anything about 9/11.  There are a lot of unfriendly countries with weapons that can hurt us, but we don't just go in there and dismantle them like we did with Iraq.

 Nothing like lowering taxes and then spending more than any president in history.

You'd think he was spoiled rich kid . . . . oh.  Wait.  Thats right.

Steve Horn wrote: Jimmy Cater was just plain stupid.  That, and the fact that he was the very worst President in my life time.

Jimmy Carter is decidedly not a stupid man.  Then or now.  What, every president to hold the office only one term is stupid?  Seriously?  Please.  Back it up with more than inflammatory remarks meant to stir the pot.

You're alive now I assume, Steve.  I don't know if you were alive when Nixon was in office, but you have had George HW Bush in office during your lifetime.  It's ludicrous to the extreme to say that Carter is "the very worst President in my life time" when arguably the worst president in America's history is still sitting in office.

Steve Horn wrote: This economic crisis is a cake walk compared to the economy when Jimmy Carter was in.

Now you're just spouting bullshit.  The current economic crisis is far worse than anything we saw in the 70s.  I know.  I've lived through both.  There's a reason this economic crisis is being compared to the crisis of the 1930's and no whisper has been made to the far less threatening, mild by comparison crisis of the 70s.

Actually the war in Iraq is a success.  Give the devil his due, he built up the Amercian forces and they were able to make the region stable. I'm not a fan of the war, but we won that one.

As far as the economy goes, the bank bailout was a big mistake.  I hear now that the treasury secretary is not buying the "toxic assets".  The government should buy these bad loans and give the people who made them and have to face forcloser now a second chance.  By second chance I mean even cleaning up their credit report.

People might not to like to hear this one, but the only way to get out of this economic slump is to build up the military.  It's what FDR used in the 1940s to get America out of the depression, and what Reagan used in the 1980s to help the economy.  And looking at the way Russia acted last August, it might be a good idea to build up.  This is the reason that Russia is building up their military is to boost their economy, and we should do the same.

Finally, Bush isn't even the worse Republican President in my life time.  That title belongs to Ford.

Scott Richards wrote: Remove the costs associated to 9/11 and the war from the chart (items that Clinton didn't have to budget for) and I wonder what it would look like?

It is a fallacy for people, mainly Republicans which is why I'm kind of shocked that you fell for it Scott, to say that without the war the Bush Administration would have been more or less fiscally responsible.  Take the war out and what you have is an administration that spent money like it was going out of style.  They still would have spent more money in their eight years in office than nearly any other president in the history of our country.