Nearly every American president has watched the national debt climb during their administration, but few could have imagined today’s mind-boggling $30 trillion figure. It’s a far cry from the mere $43 million owed after the Revolutionary War, or even the comparatively modest $119.2 million following the War of 1812.
There was actually one brief, shining moment when America was completely debt-free. President Andrew Jackson, that stubborn old coot, managed to pay off every single penny of interest-bearing debt by January 1835. The country even had a $17.9 million surplus. Imagine that – the government having extra money. It lasted about as long as most New Year’s resolutions, roughly one year. Unfortunately, Jackson’s policies led to the Panic of 1837.
Wars have been the biggest debt multipliers throughout American history. The Mexican War added $64 million. World War II? Now that’s when things got really expensive. Under Truman, the debt-to-GDP ratio hit its all-time peak. Fast forward to Reagan’s military spending spree in the 1980s, and the numbers started looking like someone’s fat finger got stuck on the zero key.
Modern presidents have taken debt accumulation to astronomical levels. Bush Jr. nearly doubled it to $9 trillion. Obama saw it balloon to $19 trillion. Then came COVID-19, and Trump left office with a whopping $27.8 trillion tab. If divided equally, each U.S. citizen would owe $85,200. The pandemic spending made previous debt increases look like pocket change.
The relationship between debt and the dollar is like a toxic marriage – they can’t live with or without each other. Market crashes inevitably lead to more debt. Tax cuts, like Reagan’s in the 1980s, pile it on. Even Clinton’s rare debt reduction in the 1990s, helped by tax increases and the dot-com boom, couldn’t prevent the eventual surge.
Today’s $30 trillion debt makes Jackson’s debt-free America seem like a fairy tale. Every financial crisis, every war, every market crash – they’ve all left their mark on the national balance sheet. And that old saying about history repeating itself? When it comes to U.S. debt, it’s been more like history on steroids.
