I agree with the previous respondent with regard to our being able to nothing about it now but I think that it is far from the current administration for creating the plight that we are in. The balance at the end of Bill Clinton's tenure was zero. Bush took it into the trillion dollar range in a matter of four years and multi trillion dollar range in eight years. Bushwas looking to get another term through a re-alignment of rules that were put in specifically to keep monarchists like him out. Obama has done a good job of keeping our heads above water with the financial legacy left to him by W!
I love how few people know how the government actually works... Congress is the one that passes laws, like spending bills, and then the president signs it into law. During the last few years of Clinton's presidency, he had a Republican congress to deal with, so he had to be more conservative, like signing welfare reform which was a law that was inspired by conservatives. The 1994 election took congress into a more conservative control, so the policies coming out of congress were more conservative. Bush, on the other hand, had to contend with a liberal congress, which was why his proposed Social Security reform went down the tubes, but the more liberal prescription drug plan was passed. With both the Clinton and Bush presidencies, they tended to govern opposite of their party affiliation in order to gain support from the independent voters as well as to work with the congress. Oh, and BTW, the debt was still in the trillions at the end of Clinton's presidency; it was the deficit that was reduced to close to zero.
A lot of fiscally conservatives Republicans and Libertarians were also upset with the spending that Bush was racking up, even for "conservative" types of spending, like military. There are some fiscally conservative people, like Ron Paul, that criticized Bush for going into Iraq after already spending a lot in the Afgan. conflict, even though congress kept affirming the spending for Iraq.
Also much of the Bush spending legacy resulted in the housing crisis that both parties were saying that we could let fail. Again, some very fiscally conservative people questioned whether this was in fact the best policy, or whether we should have let the banks fail, the housing bubble to burst, and allow for a true market correction. It may have hurt a lot in the short term, but in the long-term, the market would once again be able to support itself instead of relying on the boost from government.
I don't think we should get rid of everyone in government; that might throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak. I do agree that we should get rid of the spendthrifts in office, from both parties, and make true fiscal reform that may make difficult cuts to "untouchable" programs, like the military and welfare. Only then can we start to reduce our deficit (or perhaps even start creating a surplus) and start battling against our enormous debt, before it gets too out of control and we have to impose austerity measures, like what is happening in Europe, and have havoc reign in nationwide riots.