"How about the US debt that went thru the roof?"
How about it? Raygun famously proved it doesn't matter. Altho he couldn't increase it (tripled) as fast as he increased the deficit (quadrupled), no matter how hard he tried, conservatives still hold him up as the person to emulate (cuz they forget he raised taxes... a bunch). Shrub proved it again, cuz as soon as he was in office, he said, "surplus means taxes are too high, cut them", and he revitalized the deficit with his very first budget; his very first budget.
Conservatives applauded cuz their taxes were lower.
(Then Obama was elected, reduced the deficit every budget beginning with his first budget; his very first budget. Conservatives boo'ed, cuz of everything, but mostly for his sin of being different... a Democrat).
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It never fails. Conservative politicians can't handle money for shit.
Planet Money has obtained a secret government report outlining what once looked like a potential crisis: The possibility that the U.S. government might pay off its entire debt.
It sounds ridiculous today. But not so long ago, the prospect of a debt-free U.S. was seen as a real possibility with the potential to upset the global financial system.
We recently obtained the report through a Freedom of Information Act Request. You can read the whole thing here. (It's a PDF.)
The report is called "Life After Debt". It was written in the year 2000, when the U.S. was running a budget surplus, taking in more than it was spending every year. Economists were projecting that the entire national debt could be paid off by 2012.
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