Is there a way to find the principle of the deficit that is owed?

[BnG_Hevn]

To be fair when comparing debt run up by each president, you need to look more at how much the debt increased based on principle rather than principle + interest.

With the deficit being so high, the government can balance the budget and not spend one more cent than what it takes in and the deficit will still increase due to interest. At $16 Trillion, that will start to increase exponentially.

When the deficit was in the billions, the interest accrued might have been in the 1000s, maybe 100,000s or millions. Pretty soon it will be increasing BY billion (if not already) and then followed by Trillions. Soon it will be simply unpayable.

So what I'd like to know is how much each president increased the deficit without ANY interest being factored in from day one. Are these numbers to be had?

In fairness to Obama, the deficit will be easily > $20 Trillion, maybe closer to 25 or 30 unless he pays off chunks, which simply won't happen without a major tax increase across the board. Not that he won't do that, just that is what it will take.

[Mach1]

I'm not sure about the #'s

But raising the taxes through the roof will not accomplish much.
What needs to be done is make business friendly policies so business can flourish so they can grow or people can start more of their own businesses. Doing that would create more jobs then raising taxes. Creating jobs and putting people back to work would raise more revenue than just simply raising taxes.

[GoSlash27]

You would probably have to compile that yourself.
The deficit would be revenue minus outlays for each year, and the number you want would subtract interest servicing debt from the outlays.

Wikipedia has a running Federal budget from 1996.
HTHs,
-Slashy