Graph: National Debt

As I've said more than once before, even McCain's economic advisers acknowledge that McCain's plan "will make deficits expand." He's basically passing the bill to future generations (failing to acknowledge that this will result in higher taxes in the future in order to pay off our debt - currently at $9 trillion - with interest). On the other side of the fence, even the Wall Street Journal (grudgingly) notes that Obama's plan "adds up" (article available here, though you need either a subscription or access to Lexis).

UPDATE: I'll see if I can find one that compares Democratic/Republican Congresses, too. But what I see in this graph is a government where the two parties worked together to pay off our WWII debts until the Reagan years, where we had steep tax cuts coupled with spending increases, and then again in the George W. Bush years, where we had similar tax cuts coupled with spending increases.