Federal debt data going back to 1790 - Usually I only see since WWII, sometimes WWI, so its nice to have more complete data. In this case with projections forward by the CBO.
cboblog.cbo.gov
H/T FUBHO
Interesting that until FDR we had several serious peaks (Revolutionary War, Civil War, WWI, early Great Depression) that where all about the same. Those situations where serious, so you could argue that WWII shouldn't have been noticeably bigger (as a percentage of the economy), but I'm ok with such horrible deficits considering they are temporary war spending, for a very major war, and they helped end the war sooner, but after that, we never return to the old peak levels. The post WWII low is about the same as the pre-depression high. Still the debt has been at manageable (if too high for my taste) levels, but now that's changing too. The "extended baseline scenario" has much higher debt than any since the pay down of the WWII debt got underway in earnest. The "alternate fiscal scenario" essentially amounts to total fiscal collapse. |
