Talk:History of the U.S. public debt

Expansion request
It would be nice to see inflation-adjusted figures (for whatever range that's feasible), and as percentage of GDP and per capita. -- Beland 08:18, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

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 * I feel in my opinion, that the table is very mis-leading. Where is the surplus that President Clinton created and yes, he did create a Surplus.MagnumSerpentine9-7-6

RE: Clinton Surplus -- If we define "surplus" as an amount that reduces the public debt, there have been no surpluses since 1957 when Eisenhower was president (Republican with Democratic control of Congress.)

However, if we define another term, let's call it "slur+", in some other way that excludes enough costs (such as interest on the public debt) then a slur+ can be reported from 1994 onward while the dot.com bubble was inflating and swelling federal tax revenues. The growing bubble and its flood of tax income to the federal government lasted from 1994 through most of 2001 when the dot.com bubble began to burst and the World Trade Center terrorist attacks occurred. These events brought on a recession that exposed questionable financial conditions at such companies as Enron, WorldCom, etc that led to record bankruptcies. (Record to that time, since surpassed by Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac, etc.)

At that time (as now) deficit spending was initiated to bring the economy out of a recession and that was the end of the "slur+." The gap between income and spending grew larger yet when a questionable war with Iraq started and even larger when tax cuts were implemented to stimulate the slowing economy.

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To answer your question, the surplus slowly dissolved through president Bush's regime in Iraq. Then he started deficit spending, which may not be covering the rate of inflation.

Should the date in the first line read 2008? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.19.51.143 (talk) 04:53, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Data
The first table shows data on interest going back to 1977, but the cited source only gives data back to 1988. Whence come the additional data? Wikiant (talk) 16:53, 20 April 2010 (UTC)