The letter by Carl Sellers, “Those Numbers Don’t Add Up” (Oct. 26), is totally incorrect in fact, and, therefore, totally misleading. His numbers don’t even exist. Let’s look at his points, using data from whitehouse.gov, presumably the Office of Management and Budget:

1. The George W. Bush administration “inherited a trillion-dollar surplus.” False. “Surplus” is a term applied to annual budgets. The U.S. government has never, ever run a trillion-dollar surplus. The number is bogus.

2. Before GWB “we were a lending nation” and after GWB “we had become a borrowing nation.” I have no idea what this means. The U.S. has had a national debt since before World War II. This means we spend more than we collect and borrow the difference. Only the pace has changed, and it accelerated during the Bush administration and even more during the past three-and-a-half years of the Obama Administration. Of course, we have lent money to other countries, but that is not germane to his argument.

3. Mr. Sellers comes up with some increased debt of $9.7 billion, apparently due to GWB, based on totally fictitious numbers. These debt numbers are not supported even by the Obama administration’s budget submissions.

4. Mr. Sellers thinks these numbers are different than those from the Romney campaign. Gee, I wonder why.

I am in no way justifying the Bush administration’s fiscal policy. But, as bad as it was, it has become significantly worse under the Obama administration.

We need a change for the sake of our republic’s existence. Attempts to obscure economic realities with phony statistics is not helpful.

Philip Starr

Whispering Pines