# The national debt through history



## Bob Kellam (Apr 8, 2004)

I found this interesting?
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*The national debt through history*

By *MARY DEIBEL*
Scripps Howard News Service
WASHINGTON -- The national debt, inherited at the Republic's founding, grew steadily the first 192 years to $1 trillion. Now it's soared to $8.2 trillion the last quarter-century and it's about to swell again:

1791: The United States was $75.5 million in the red, mostly from Revolutionary War debt, when the first Congress finished President George Washington's budget.

1794: The Washington administration had the federal government assume all state debts run up since the Revolution. Sin taxes proposed to retire the resulting $78.4 million national debt sparked the Whiskey Rebellion.

1815: The debt jumped to $99.8 million to finance the three-year War of 1812 that Britain launched on its former colonies.

1846-48: The two-year Mexican War, financed entirely by borrowing, saw the national debt rise from $15.5 million at the war's outset to $63.1 million after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo required the United States to pay Mexico $15 million for ceding present-day Arizona, California, New Mexico and parts of Colorado, Nevada and Utah.

1861: With the debt at $90.6 million on the eve of secession, President Abraham Lincoln signed the first income tax in 1862 to defray Civil War costs. The Confederacy printed its own money and bonds to finance its fight.

1865: The U.S. debt stood at $2.7 billion at the Confederacy's surrender, five days before Lincoln's assassination.

1871: The debt was $2.2 billion when Lincoln's income tax was repealed. Tariffs and taxes on liquor and tobacco financed the federal government instead.

1913: On the cusp of World War I, with U.S. debt at $2.9 billion, the United States ratified the 16th Amendment authorizing a limited income tax.

1918: The armistice a year after America entered "the war to end all wars" saw the national debt jump to $27.4 billion.

1929: The debt was down to $16.9 billion when the Wall Street crash preceded the Depression, but rose to $22.5 billion in 1933 once President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal sought to jump-start the economy.

1939: With World War II under way in Europe, the United States adopted the first broad-based income tax to finance a defense buildup. By Pearl Harbor in 1941, the debt was $48 billion.

1945: By the Axis powers' surrender, the U.S. debt was $259 billion.

1959: Post-war prosperity didn't lower the debt, which rose to $291 billion as President Dwight Eisenhower sent the first "advisers" to Vietnam.

1968: With the debt at $358 billion, President Lyndon Johnson won a 10 percent income-tax surcharge to finance the Vietnam War and the Great Society domestic programs.

1974-75: The debt was $493 billion when President Richard Nixon resigned and the last U.S. troops left Vietnam.

1981: Two oil embargoes and double-digit inflation swelled the debt to $930 billion when Ronald Reagan took office. His $750 billion tax cut, defense buildup and promise to balance the budget came up short, pushing the national debt above $1 trillion. Reagan and Congress hiked taxes the next year to get a handle on the debt.

1988: The elder George Bush won the presidency, promising, "Read my lips, no new taxes," despite a national debt of $2.6 trillion. Two years later, with the debt at $3.2 trillion and Bush poised to fight Iraq in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, he OK'd a tax increase.

1998: The longest expansion in U.S. history produced the first federal surplus since 1969, even though the debt hit $5.5 trillion. Surpluses the next three years let President Bill Clinton and Congress pay down debt and pass a $97 billion tax cut.

2001: President George W. Bush won a $1.35 trillion tax cut despite a $5.6 trillion national debt based on his claim that a government that stood to run a $5.6 trillion surplus should give taxpayers' money back. The debt was $6.2 trillion when deficits returned the next year after recession and the 9/11 attacks.

2006: Iraq, homeland security and Hurricane Katrina reconstruction costs helped the government hit the $8.2 trillion debt ceiling, prompting Bush to ask Congress to raise the debt limit to just under $9 trillion. But his call to make his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent has confronted congressional estimates that put the 10-year cost at another $2 trillion.

(Contact Mary Deibel at DeibelM(at)shns.com)


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## DecoyDummy (May 25, 2005)

An interesting "lack of" notation there ...

Between 1975 and 1981 ...

ZERO mention of JIMMY CARTER ...

Only mention of the reasons/excuses for the DOUBLING of debt in little over five years.

Just a thought and maybe a retorical question in the back of my mind regarding the Political Ideology of the writer.


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## Militant_Tiger (Feb 23, 2004)

Only mention of the reasons/excuses for the DOUBLING of debt in little over five years.

How many times over has Bush doubled the debt now?


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

I think Bush's spending is comparing apples to oranges. I remember 22 lr shells for less than $0.50 so any current president is going to outspend presidents of the past. Also, most were not at war. But if you want to hate Bush you can ignore those facts.


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## Militant_Tiger (Feb 23, 2004)

Even when the conversion is made for inflation this president is the greatest spendthrift that the country has ever seen.

In fact, I'll do the math for you

The current debt (aprox) is $8285531664394, or 8 trillion dollars. Using the inflation calculator at http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi , I have determined that in 1981, the final year of the Carter administration, that it would have equaled about $3702890376780, or 3.7 trillion dollars.

In reality, the national debt was just about 1 trillion that year, as stated by http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/history.gif

So, essientially in 1981 dollars, Bush has spent about 370% more than Jimmy Carter did. Hardly a conservative.

Another comparison can be seen here, in dollar figures corrected for 2000.
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/inflation.gif

But if you want to love him you can ignore those facts.


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

Don't get me wrong, I am disappointed in how much Bush spends. He acts like a liberal when it comes to spending. Many conservatives have spent nearly as much as liberals. The difference is many of them spent it on the military to protect this nation while the liberals spent it on welfare to ensure votes for the democratic party.


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## Militant_Tiger (Feb 23, 2004)

Plainsman said:


> Don't get me wrong, I am disappointed in how much Bush spends. He acts like a liberal when it comes to spending. Many conservatives have spent nearly as much as liberals. The difference is many of them spent it on the military to protect this nation while the liberals spent it on welfare to ensure votes for the democratic party.


So what of the Democratic war presidents? What of FDR, who led us through the greatest war this nation has ever seen and yet put us only 2.5 trillion in debt in 1945? This president has not used funds to protect the country, he has squandered them on pork projects to keep the Republican party happy, and now we see many of them turning on him in his lame duck years.

I am quite confident that if you don't want to hear something, you don't.


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

I don't think you have done a very good job of compensating for inflation when you compare these things. As late as 1958 I can remember my dad coming into the house after the gasoline truck delivered gas to the farm. He said to my mom " my god what do they want out blood, gas has jumped from $.013 to $.0.17 a gallon, that's robbery". You still haven't got an accurate grasp of thing's MT. When they begin to ration gas, coffee, sugar, tires, etc then tell me how much worse off we are and how much more we are spending on this war than WWII.


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## Militant_Tiger (Feb 23, 2004)

Plainsman said:


> I don't think you have done a very good job of compensating for inflation when you compare these things. As late as 1958 I can remember my dad coming into the house after the gasoline truck delivered gas to the farm. He said to my mom " my god what do they want out blood, gas has jumped from $.013 to $.0.17 a gallon, that's robbery". You still haven't got an accurate grasp of thing's MT. When they begin to ration gas, coffee, sugar, tires, etc then tell me how much worse off we are and how much more we are spending on this war than WWII.


Evidently you feel that your memories supercede two separate inflation calculators. So be it, no evidence is good enough to change the mind of someone so persistent. Funny that you should mention the rationing, as we have a president who feels that he can execute a war while giving tax breaks and not asking the public to make any sacrafices. America is suffering thanks to this debt and spend president.


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## DecoyDummy (May 25, 2005)

MT Wrote:

America is suffering thanks to this debt and spend president.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I suppose paying higher taxes does not equate to "Suffering?"

Oh I must have forgotten ... We tax the Rich so it's not suffering it's just redistribution of the wealth.

Oh and last I saw numbers I believe you can make under 100,000 and be in the "TOP 10%" of wage earners who pay 65% of the tax dollars The top 50% pay over 96% of the taxes and earn $26,000.00 and up in 1999. The other half of the folks who work, pay no income taxes to begin with ... hard to imagine taxes (and higher taxes) not equate to suffering for atleast half the working people in America.


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## Burly1 (Sep 20, 2003)

MT, I am always very impressed by your dedicated research, and your ability to find quotes and figures to support your views. However, what you fail to recognize, is that in spite of your dedication to facts and figures, you, as a teenager have SEEN virtually nothing in life, compared to so many others. In spite of being a well intentioned comment, I know you will take this as an insult. It seems to be your nature. The undeniable fact remains; to truly appreciate and understand the effect of various events throughout recent history, you have to have lived through it. I can comment on FDR no more credibly than you can about James Earl Carter. We rely, so very much on the media spin, whichever way it flows, to form our opinions. That alone creates unfounded bias. I honestly believe that adjusting current national debt up or down to make comparisons to certain time periods in history means exactly nothing. It's what we see and feel as American consumers that counts. We are prosperous as a nation because of what we stand for. Our freedoms are what brings us to foreign shores to support democracy and eliminate oppression. It is also why so many around the world hate Americans. We have what they do not. We are not perfect, nothing is. But I'm betting that things are going to work out, no matter what the national debt number is, because I think and live as an American who has faith in the system and has seen it work through some serious problems, which at the time, looked hopeless. If you live life as a "glass half empty" person, you are simply depriving yourself of half of what life offers. Having faith, in spite of what currently looks scary, is what got this nation started, and what will pull us through in the long run. (Wave flag and sing national anthem here). Burl


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## Militant_Tiger (Feb 23, 2004)

> I suppose paying higher taxes does not equate to "Suffering?"
> 
> Oh I must have forgotten ... We tax the Rich so it's not suffering it's just redistribution of the wealth.


We tax so that we can afford to run wars properly and fund our schools properly (as opposed to making half hearted promises like the "No Child Left Behind" bill). This national debt is going to be paid off eventually, and your children will be footing the bill. Passing the buck is not the way I like to do business.


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## Goose Huntin' Machine (May 8, 2005)

You know MT...you actually make some sense.

I agree, cutting taxes in the time of war is absolutely insane. Though, the Tax and spend democrats of yesterday are still here, and the Borrow and spend republicans are here as well.

GWB got my vote in 2004, and truthfully, I would not vote for him again. Way too far to the left for me, and because of it, the Republican party (and the Country as a whole) are sliding further to the left as well.

Ahh yes, you (or someone else) made the point about FDR raising the debt to fund WW II...let's not forget what the new deal cost.

Ohh and despite what anyone might think, GWB has out spent LBJ, and I do believe he has spent more than Clinton did in 2 terms in only his (W's) first term.

Borrow and spin....sheesh, whatever happened to Fiscal conservatives?

No, not a liberal, a far, far right winger!

Jeff Given


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## racer66 (Oct 6, 2003)

> as opposed to making half hearted promises like the "No Child Left Behind" bill


If you've got such a problem with this bill why don't you ask brother Kennedy why he wrote it?


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## Militant_Tiger (Feb 23, 2004)

> If you've got such a problem with this bill why don't you ask brother Kennedy why he wrote it?


Evidently you have not kept up with the bill. It was well thought out, and seemed as if it would help the nation's school children, but was left unfunded by the president, and as such has been a spectacular failure.


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## racer66 (Oct 6, 2003)

Evidently you liberals like to keep twisting the truth. Pulled from fact check.

Education Funding

The ad also faults Bush for "underfunding" his No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) by almost $10 billion. The NCLB Act instituted mandatory testing of students in reading and mathematics and requires schools to make progress toward statewide proficiency goals.

The DNC cites as its source a recent Congressional Research Service report, which actually shows that federal appropriations for federal programs supporting grades kindergarten through 12th grade have increased by one-third under Bush, to more than $37 billion in the current fiscal year ending Oct. 30. The CRS report does not offer any support for the Democratic claim that Bush promised additional federal funds when the NCLB ad was passed with bipartisan support in 2002.

Since then, the CRS report notes, "there has been a continuing discussion regarding the appropriations 'promised' and the resulting 'shortfall' when the enacted appropriations are compared to authorization levels." Authorization levels are dollar amounts contained in the legislation that creates federal programs. But before any money can be spent a separate appropriation measure must be passed, which seldom provides the maximum amount of money that is authorized. As the CRS report notes, "In the past, education programs with specified authorization amounts generally have been funded at lower levels; few have been funded at levels equal to or higher than the specified authorization amount."

In the case of programs affected by NCLB, the CRS report calculated that appropriations were $9.1 billion less than the authorization levels last year, and $12.0 billion less in the current fiscal year. That is what the DNC ad calls "underfunding." W e find it misleading to use the term "underfunding" without explaining what that really means.


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