Surprising Facts About the US National Debt

A recurrent theme in US politics is that Democrats overspend and that Republicans are more careful with the nation’s finances. Every time the US has an election, the Republican right tends to call the Democratic left “Tax and Spend Liberals”, and make all sorts of charges that the election of Democrats will inevitably doom the country to huge deficits. These charges have been made so many times that most Americans inevitably take this notion as established fact. To verify if the charge is realistic, a close look at the statistics behind the US national debt is most informative.

Have a look at the graph shown below, for it tells us many things about long term trends in the US national debt.

The most striking thing about this graph is in the overall trends. Looking at the 70 year period shown in the graph, a few things stand out: 1) the national debt spiked upwards very quickly during the 1940s due to the staggering costs of WWII. 2) Debt as a Percent of GDP (DPGDP) then declined for the next four decades, from Truman in the late 40s and early 50s till the end of Jimmy Carter’s time in office in 1980. 3) DPGDP then skyrocketed during the Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr administrations. 4) DPGDP declined again during Bill Clinton’s time in office. 5) DPGDP then rose substantially again during George W. Bush’s administration in the early to late 2000s. 6) From George W. Bush’s years of elevated debt, DPGDP has increased again during the first year of President Obama’s administration.

Remember when looking at these numbers that an increase in DPGDP is bad and a decrease in DPDGP is good. That assertion rests on the assumption that running more balanced budgets is a good thing and running more imbalanced budgets is a bad thing.

So by looking at this graph, can we conclude that Democrats generally increase the National Debt and Republicans generally decrease it? Actually, by looking at the data, we can easily conclude the opposite, that in the 70 year period shown, that Democrats have more often reduced DPGDP (Debt as a Percentage of GDP), and Republicans have more often increased it. The largest increase of DPGDP in this period was during Ronald Reagan’s administration. This is highly ironic when one considers the God-like awe that many Republicans show toward the memory of Ronald Reagan. Reagan is often held out as an example of “The Ideal Conservative” and yet he actually initiated the largest increase in the National Debt in the last 70 years.

Shown below is a table showing the change in National Debt during these various administrations.

Administration                   Change in GPGDP                Verdict

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R-Eisenhower                         – 16.2%                                 Outstanding

D-Kennedy/Johnson             – 16.5%                                  Outstanding

R-Nixon/Ford                         -  2.8%                                    Adequate

D-Carter                                   -  3.2%                                    One term only

R-Reagan                                + 20.5%                                   Terrible

R-Bush Sr.                              + 13.1%                                    Terrible

D-Clinton                                -  8.8%                                      Very Good

R-Bush Jr.                              + 12.4%                                    Terrible

Data from WhiteHouse.gov

Is Iran’s Time Running Out?

The election of Barack Obama gave much encouragement to those who hope for a negotiated settlement with Iran regarding that nation’s push to develop its nuclear capability. While I never particularly shared that hope, based on my distrust of their leadership, I have watched with interest how the negotiating process has unfolded.  So-called negotiations with the west have been ongoing for many years now. So far, they have come to no agreements. Few people have any illusions that the recent presidential election in Iran was anything but a sham. Ahmadinejad remains in power and pro-democratic protesters continue to be beaten and tortured.

Ahmadinejad and his cronies have been playing with the west for years, pretending to negotiate on the nuclear issue while they pursue their ultimate goal, that of acquiring nuclear weapons. If you believe that the Iranians only goal with their nuclear program is the “peaceful production of nuclear power”, then I have some swampland in Florida I would like to sell to you.

Let me stress one thing here clearly: a peaceful resolution of this issue is vastly preferable to one achieved by military action. However, the process of negotiating is only useful if you are negotiating with somebody who actually wants to come to an agreement.