The Gross National Debt

Reagan got elected by telling the country the debt was "out of control." But, compared to national income, it was the lowest in 50 years. He probably didn't know. But his supply-side economists did, and they lied to America.

Bush senior knew they were lying and call it Voodoo economics—meaning: No, cutting taxes, would not raise more money and cure the deficit. Well, duh. They've tried this stunt twice, as you can see at the right, but much more clearly on the full National Debt Graph.

Conservatives have long been [#embarrassed] by Reagan running the debt up and out of control, so they made up a cover story — "the Democratic Congress did it." But as this graph shows, Congress changed the presidents' budgets only a tiny bit, and mostly down not up — Congress reduced Reagan's spending by $16 billion over his eight budget years. In spite of Congressional reductions, Reagan increased the debt by $1,860 billion. Blaming that on Congress is just political deception.  More + Documentation

What if Reagan and the Bushes had balanced their budgets?  It's easy to find the answer. The Treasury records the "debt to the penny" almost every day, so we can get most of the answer by just looking up the debt on the first day of Reagan's first budget and subtracting that from the debt on the last day of Bush senior's last budget. Do the same for G. W. Bush. That comes to $9.5 Trillion, and then there's some interest. It's amazing what the supply siders did to the Republican party — once conservative, now radical revolutionaries.

In the Great Depression business conservatives scared people about inflation (there was none) and about government borrowing (tiny until WWII). And that's why the Great Depression lasted 12 years. Then came WWII and the the US started to [#borrow and spend like crazy]. The effect was immediate, and the economy rocketed from depression to [#super boom].