You know the old saying: “You are your toughest critic.” In the case of President, this seems to be true as his past words as a candidate running for president are coming back to haunt his reelection campaign.

July 3, 2008: Candidate Obama criticizes President George W. Bush for adding $4 trillion to the nation’s debt over the course of his eight years in office:

“The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents – #43 added $4 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back — $30,000 for every man, woman and child. That’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic.“

Flash-forward to today where the Treasury Department reports that President Obama has also added $4 trillion to the debt… in just 2 1/2 years:

The latest posting by the Treasury Department shows the national debt has now increased $4 trillion on President Obama’s watch.

The debt was $10.626 trillion on the day Mr. Obama took office. The latest calculation from Treasury shows the debt has now hit $14.639 trillion.

It’s the most rapid increase in the debt under any U.S. president.