The National Debt
How It Accumulates and Who Bears the Burden
The United States, from its beginning in 1790 to the present, has been free of a national debt for only two years, 1834 and 1835. The national debt has grown from $75.5 million in 1790 to $4.3 trillion in 2004. The national debt reached a high of 108.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 1946. It then began a long decline, reaching a low of 32.5 percent in 1981. The large budget deficits of the 1980s and 1990s reversed this trend and pushed the percentage to another high of 49.5 percent in 1993. The Federal budget surpluses from Fiscal…
