Peter C. Earle
Barely halfway through 2024, the rapidly rising tower of US public debt has reached yet another milestone. Two hundred and six days after reaching $34 trillion, America’s debt pile has reached $35 trillion. To put this in perspective, the debt at the end of World War II was about $259 billion, making the current debt more than 135 times that amount. The US has now borrowed amounts larger than the combined GDPs of China, Japan, and Germany.
It is increasingly difficult to grasp that only a bit more than four decades ago the US national debt was $907 billion, and that the surpassing of the $1 trillion mark in 1981 was seen as a watershed moment. The amount of debt undertaken by the Biden administration alone now stands at $7.2 trillion, an amount equal to the amount of national debt incurred between the presidencies of two Georges: Washington (who assumed office in 1789) and the younger Bush (who left office in 2009). This is still less than was taken on by the Trump administration ($7.8 trillion), but if the borrowing needs of the current administration are what they are projected to be, the Biden administration may set a new record by having added over $8 trillion in debt.
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