Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan is taking President Barack Obama to task over the nation's deficit at a Waukesha rally.

Ryan appeared in front of hundreds of people in Carroll University's field house Monday. His campaign erected a digital scoreboard at one end of the field house that tracked the growth of the national debt by the second. Ryan urged people to watch how fast the numbers are growing. He said Obama has run up more debt than all the nation's previous presidents combined.

"Not only do we have a string of broken promises, not only do we have a lack of leadership, this debt is not only hurting our economy today, it is guaranteeing that these young kids getting Halloween costumes and going out trick or treating are going to have a diminished future," Ryan said.

But Democrats said Ryan is part of the problem when it comes to the debt. Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin argued that point at the Democratic Party office in Waukesha.

"Because if you look at his (Ryan's) budget and that of Mitt Romney, there is no way they are going to deal in a responsible fashion with this deficit, and they haven't. They can't increase tax breaks for the wealthiest people in America in a level that they are talking about," Durbin said.

Wisconsin is one of nine states Republicans and Democrats believe are still in play for the November elections. Ryan headlined a fundraiser for GOP U.S. Senate candidate Tommy Thompson in Milwaukee on Sunday and Vice President Joe Biden was in La Crosse on Friday.