There's a ton of verbiage about X dollars of this and Y program of that which have contributed to the debt and deficit. Most of it doesn't serve to enlighten, I'm convinced that it's largely meant to confuse.

The Obama administration have just presented a very clear picture of what the components of the debt are.

Obama policies have been directed at contingencies and emergencies, not wars of choice and vast pay-offs to political benefactors. I'll grant Bush TARP.

On a per-year basis (giving Obama 1.5 years and Bush 8), the per year deficit is worse under Obama's policies, but the discretionary element is less. Bush got us into this mess, Obama's trying like hell to get us out (and last time I checked, the other team wasn't exactly cooperating enthusiastically).

We've also got the structural and internal (SSI) components of debt clearly spelled out.

Again: this is far better than I've seen from many other sources.

There's no time axis as this isn't particularly a time-based graph, it's a statement of current accounts, and an accounting of where those components came from.