When Bush took office in January 2001, the government was forecasting a $5.6 trillion budget surplus between then and 2011. Instead, it is now expecting to accumulate an extra $3 trillion in debt -- including a record $415 billion in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. The government has to borrow an average of more than $1.1 billion a day to pay its bills, and it spends more on interest payments on the federal debt each year -- about $159 billion -- than it does on education, homeland security, justice and law enforcement, veterans, international aid, and space exploration combined.

Without doubt, the fiscal turnaround started with the bursting of the stock market bubble and was pushed forward by recession, terrorist attacks and corporate scandals not of the president's making. But conservative and liberal budget analysts agree that deficits were increased by the administration's policy choices: tax cuts amid swelling red ink and the costly invasion of Iraq.

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