USA National Debt Clock

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No one cares about the national debt anymore. It's exploded under Trump and it's going to go higher with the Covid Stimulus 2 bill. (Or is it Covid Stimulus 3?)

About the only thing Democrats and Republicans can agree on is to spend, spend, spend.

 

Yeah Salty, it works... Reminds me of one of Iconoclast posts... Different colors... Looked at it and left... Which one?... Both!... Brother Glen

 

The clock goes back to 1980. When would you say anyone ever cared about the national debt? Certainly nobody cared when Ross Perot ran in ’92, when they were busy selling us out with NAFTA.

 

From my point of view I think people still cared about the national debt up to about 2002. I remember the 2000 debates featured the debt quite a bit. Remember Al Gore's "Social Security Lockbox" mantra? Certainly all through the 1980's it was brought up because Reagan was increasing defense spending via SDI in order to bring the USSR to their knees. Then for the couple of years that Clinton ran surpluses in the late 1990's the national debt was still a topic, but as something that could be harnessed and brought under control.

George W. Bush thought there would be surpluses for several years so he proposed the Medicare drug benefit, big spending on No Child Left Behind, and a lot of money on farm subsidies. After those things were approved the national debt was a lost topic, IMO. Of course the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, the Great Recession and now the Covid-19 Recession has made the national debt irrelevant.

We went almost 200 years without a national budget greater than $1 trillion. Reagan had the first $1 trillion budget. Then George W. had a $2 trillion budget, and then George W. had a $3 trillion budget. so sometime in Bush's first term the national debt became irrelevant.

 

OK, sorry, I misunderstood. I was thinking about those in office, the ones that could actually do something about it, besides talk. Clinton may have done "the best" but still ran it up 32%, not that the president alone is guilty. Congressional pork is legendary. I recall Reagan pining for line item veto, but that's never gonna happen.

 

What total national debt number are you seeing?