To the editor:

Recently, I queried Rep. Lynn Jenkins regarding the chaotic situation with the deficit. In her response, Jenkins stated the following:

“It took us more than 230 years to get into our current fiscal mess and with a Democrat Senate and President Obama in the White House it is an important step as we continue to fight to reform Washington and get our nation on a course toward financial accountability.”

This statement is inaccurate and disproved by these historical facts, as cited in an article by Robert J. Elisberg in a Huffington Post article in February 2011.

1) During the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations the national debt increased a combined whopping 35.6 percent. It was the largest debt in that time in U.S. history. Mr. Reagan alone tripled the national debt from $997 billion to $2.6 trillion.

2) Under President George W. Bush the national debt increased by a combined 21.7 percent. The budget went from a $128 billion surplus to a $482 billion deficit. The national debt during this administration doubled from $5.7 trillion to $10.7 trillion. Vice President Dick Cheney was quoted as saying, “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.”

3) In Bill Clinton’s administration, the national debt decreased. It went down by a combined 9.7 percent. Further, he balanced the U.S. budget.

4) In every Republican administration since Nixon-Ford in 1973, the national debt increased in America. Every reduction of national debt has occurred during a Democratic administration. Republicans slam the Jimmy Carter presidency for incompetence. The national debt went down 3.3 percent during the Carter administration.

Those are the facts.