From 1980 to 2008 there was a perfect correlation between whether a Republican or Democrat was in the oval office and whether the debt was blowing up insanely or actually being paid off (Clinton, the lone Democratic President during that period, actually had a budget surplus the last two years of his Presidency). Unfortunately, it was still impossible to get Republicans to believe that the ballooning debt wasn't the Democrats' fault - "tax and spend liberals" etc. etc. Then Obama joined in the "deficits don't matter" parade as did Biden, and now you can't even use actual facts to try and convince people that Republicans are as far from being "fiscal conservatives" as it's possible to be.