The Wondering Years

Historically the debt has ballooned during times of war. Looking at the graph below you can see the national debt back to the year 1800. Notice that pre-1950, the spikes in debt were due to war - specifically the Civil War, World War I and World War II. 

Smaller jumps in the deficit also occurred during the Great Depression. During that time the government instituted programs to spend their way out of economic hardship - running up the nation's debt to do so. 

Things changed about the time of the Korean War. Perhaps it was the Truman Doctrine's glorious fight against the spawn of the devil known as Communism that propelled us into greater and greater debt. Maybe the blame should fall on Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs and the costs they added to the federal budget.

The only thing that is known for sure is that until the Clinton administration, the federal debt grew almost non-stop for 50 years. That trend has continued unabated since the 9/11 attacks. What changed to make our government run its balance sheet in the red for over half a century? It makes me wonder. You?

Graph courtesy of pgpf.org