Barack Obama has made some pretty grandiose promises/predictions (I'm not sure which they are) about reducing the deficit by the close of this term of office. I don't know if he can do it either…but it's encouraging to look back at how recent Democrats have done with the not-unrelated national debt as opposed to, say, administrations that had someone named Bush in or near the Oval Office. Take a look at this blog post and especially at the chart there.