the national debt of america when president william jefferson clinton left office was $5 trillion. $5 trillion. in other words, the accumulated debt of america from george washington to the end of william jefferson clinton, $5 trillion. as president clinton left office, he said to president bush, i want to give you in the next year $120 million surplus in terms of what you can anticipate to happen in the next year. it was a pretty positive situation, with a lot of job creation, businesses doing well and homes being built. now fast forward from twaou to 2008 -- from 2000 to 2008. eight years later, let's take a snapshot, what was the state of the economy? we were facing unemployment at record levels and numbers growing by the month. we no longer had a national debt of $5 trillion. eight years later, after president george bush, that national debt was $12 trillion. more than doubled in an eight-year period of time. and the obvious question is: what happened? why were we doing so well eight years before and had fallen so badly into the situation eight years later? we had two wars that we