It has more to do with the state of the economy, then it does as a measurement of debt. Or the paying back of debt.
You can either do a balanced economy, or you can do a balanced budget. Doing one can be worse for the either.
Bush was handed an economy as it was tanking. One of the plays out of the Macroeconomic playbook is to cut taxes and increase government spending. While this does raise the debt, it helps the economy grow.
On the other hand, if the economy is growing, you want to inhibit it from going too fast. If it grows too fast, inflation will go up just as fast and ruin it all. So you cut spending and raise taxes. It seems counterintuitive, but you have to trust that it works.
The other thing you have to trust is that it will always have cycles. It will always go up, and it will always go down. It is a cycle. The question is, how much will it cycle. It can have good ups (90's internet boom), and it can have big downs (great depression). But more often then not, it has small swings. Taxes and Govt. spending are direct controls. The Federal Reserve and their control of interest rates (and something else) are minor controls. You spend to get yourself out of a recession, you save when you're in a boom.
