All the way back to Truman, it’s the R presidents who added the most debt

Click chart to see larger version

A fascinating chart via Wikipedia. In addition to showing how much debt was added during each presidency, all the way back to Truman, the chart also shows debt relative to GDP. The reason for that is that $1 trillion in debt in 1950 was a heck of a lot more than $1 trillion in debt today. So the ratio gives you a sense of how big the figure really is in the dollars of the time.

What do we see? That during Democratic presidencies, all the way back to Truman, there was a decrease in the ratio of total debt to GDP. But during Republican presidencies, all the way back to Nixon, there was an increase in the ratio of total debt to GDP. And it doesn't seem to matter much who is in congress, per the data. What does seem relevant is who was in the Oval Office, an R or a D. Ds always showed an decrease in debt/GDP, while Rs almost always showed an increase.  Even Obama, who had to deal with the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression (and one he inherited from George W Bush), "only" increased debt/GDP by 9%.  Bush increased it by 20%.

And if you prefer to add up the raw numbers, from Truman to Obama, Democratic presidents added $3.43 trillion to the debt, while the Republicans added $9.83 trillion.