When Jimmy Carter Left Office The National Debt Was Under $1 Trillion Dollars

[DanieRains]

Last edited Tue Jan 4, 2022, 07:34 PM - Edit history (1)

What the hell happened?

[tblue37]

1. Reagan, 8 years; Bush 1, 4 years; Bush 2, 8 years; Trump 4 years:

Last edited Tue Jan 4, 2022, 07:59 PM - Edit history (1)

IOW, 24 years of GOP irresponsibility.

[jimfields33]

10. What was the congress makeup?

That’s where the budget happens!!!!!

[Torchlight]

14. Only in congress and nowhere else?

[jimfields33]

17. Pretty much.

[Torchlight]

18. Is 'pretty much' an absolute yes or an absolute no?

'cause I think a lot of PACs, CEOs, and special interest groups have a lot more skin in this than you seem to believe.

[jimfields33]

19. Maybe in writing the bill, but they get zero vote on the bill.

[Torchlight]

21. You believe they have no impact on the bill passing?

Or are you moving the goalposts?

[jimfields33]

23. How a bill works.

It begins in the house. The house votes. It’s sent to the senate, the add amendments to the bill and then votes. It’s goes maybe back to house or to the president who can either sign or veto the congressional bill.

[Torchlight]

24. No, that's not how a bill works anywhere but in textbooks.

I'm beginning to think you're willfully ignoring that special interests pull strings... those strings often vote as they're instructed regardless of their own convictions, desires or opinions.

[jimfields33]

25. Ok. Must go eat.

Talk with you later.

[Effete Snob]

2. No, it was 908 billion

You must be thinking of the annual deficit instead.

Also in 1980, the GDP was only 2.8 trillion.

But since a Democrat is in office, we are going to worry about the debt again.

I quit worrying about it, you know why?

Because you can buy US Treasury I-Bonds, right now, at over 7% annual return. Right now. Up to $10,000 worth.

I bought $10k just before New Years, and I'm buying $10k more now.

You too can quit worrying about the debt and become a creditor of the United States. Just like I did.

And I did it all online at www.TreasuryDirect.gov - that's the US Treasury website where you can flip the script and become one of the millions of Americans to whom most of the national debt is owed.

[JHB]

3. Ronald Reagan and the conservative takeover of congress

However, you're off by a factor of a thousand. It was under $1 trillion, not 1 billion.

Once the revenue destroyers came in with their Laffer-able game of 3-curve Monte, it was ok to triple the debt, then double that, then more and more and more. After all, per a certain Dick, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter" (except when a Democrat is president).

[former9thward]

20. Who are you calling conservative?

The House was Democratic during all of Reagan's years.

[JHB]

26. Wasn't thinking of just Reagan's years, since round 2 of Republican Debt Ballooning was under Dubya

But if you really want to get on my case about the 80s, then tell me about how the Democratically-controlled Congress was somehow powerless to do anything about union-busting or job-destruction from Mergermaina.

I mean, I don't consider it contradictory because the Great Sorting was only partially complete at the time, so there were still a few liberal Republicans and numbers of (Manchin-level or more) conservative Democrats.

But you took umbrage at my characterization, so please elaborate why what you said was relevant.

[former9thward]

27. I see many, many posts on here who seem to give supreme power to the President.

As if we do not have three branches of government. It is usually when there is something negative to report about. That is my only point. Although to continue to blame a person who has been out of office for 34 years for things in the present I find weird.

[JHB]

28. The OP was about the debt when Carter left office. That makes for a kinda natural deliniation point

My hobby horse is more Movement Conservatives and their normalization of conservative radicalism and grievance-fostering. i can take it back to the 1952 Republican convention, if you want to.

Reagan wasn't blameless, but he was a splendid vehicle for more radical actors.

[former9thward]

29. Well, I can't go that far back.

But I believe both parties have shifted.

[Hoyt]

4. So, when is someone planning to reduce the debt?

[RB TexLa]

31. No one has the guts to do it.

It would take austerity. You have to have the politics of it hurt both sides to get it and you have to have a public willing to sacrifice. We have neither.

The politicians would not work together to do both massive tax increases and massive spending cuts but that really doesn't matter. You simply can not convince the American public that they are not collectively entitled to have the very very best provided for them. They feel they are entitled to that no mater the debt.

We desperately need to simply sacrifice a generation through austerity to reset for future generations to thrive.


But, I don't have children and I don't know any of the children in my family so to me, it doesn't really matter. I don't have to worry about what is left behind. Yet I recycle, work to live at least more sustainably and think about things like this. The people who do raise children should be the ones screaming for this. But that entitlement sets in. The old trick is to ask them why did you have children and 9 out of 10 times their answer begins with "I wanted . . . " and that's all you need to know about them.

[Hoyt]

33. Agree. Think chit will hit in early 2030s when Social Security cuts hit.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

5. Other people have already said this, but ...

https://www.thebalance.com/us-debt-by-president-by-dollar-and-percent-3306296

Ronald Reagan
President Regan added $1.86 trillion to the national debt, a 186% increase from the $997.8 billion debt at the end of Carter's last budget.

FY 1989: $255 billion
FY 1988: $252 billion
FY 1987: $225 billion
FY 1986: $302 billion
FY 1985: $251 billion
FY 1984: $195 billion
FY 1983: $235 billion
FY 1982: $145 billion

Jimmy Carter
President Carter added $299 billion to the debt, a 42.7% increase from the $698.8 billion debt at the end of Ford's last budget.

FY 1981: $90.1 billion
FY 1980: $81.1 billion
FY 1979: $54.9 billion
FY 1978: $72.7 billion

[thatdemguy]

6. And if you take inflation, the 908 billion would be

Just over 3 trillion today. Or just over 10% of what it is today. What really hurts us is the fact that we have been paying interest on that 908 B / 3 T for 40 years. If we said the average rate of 6%, thats 30 trillion in interest. Yes I know this was not compounded with inflation, so assume its actually closer to the middle, or 15 trillion in interest, or about 3 years of current spending.

[brush]

7. Under one trillion.

[ProfessorGAC]

8. Beat Me To It!

A Tr not a B, or 3 more zeroes.

[brush]

9. Quite a big difference. Hard to even comprehend...

Last edited Tue Jan 4, 2022, 08:32 PM - Edit history (1)

these staggering amounts. A trillion is a thousand billion.

You can spend a million a day and still not get even close to spending a trillion.

[ProfessorGAC]

16. A Million Million!

Using your $1 million a day spending, it would take 2,740 years to spend a trillion.
Staggering is an apt descriptor!

[bucolic_frolic]

11. Are we confusing debt vs. deficit?

One is annual, one is cumulative.

[DanieRains]

13. The Cumulative Debt

Not deficit.

[DanieRains]

12. I Meant Trillion Not Billion

Sorry.

See what happens with the insanely rich don't pay taxes.

[thatdemguy]

34. And if you took

all the net worth of every billionaire, it would total 5 trillion. That would crash a lot of stocks and business.

Even if you went after every dime of wealth over 10 million, it would still not cure the debt. It would take a chunk out of it thou. And it would crash the world, not just stocks and business.

I just want to see capital gains, not including housing, taxed like income. And by income I mean current actual tax brackets, you make a million in profit on stock sales, taxed at what ever the actual tax rate would be for that million. But I think its wrong to tax profits on housing increases. Taxing some little old lady on the house she has owned for 30 years when she goes in to a nursing home is wrong.

[Takket]

15. reagen replaced "spend the money you make" with "give the money you make to the rich and spend the

same amount anyway"

[former9thward]

22. The president signs or vetoes legislation.

The tax and spending bills are passed by Congress.

[RB TexLa]

30. 31.02% is actually how you measure it.

You measure government debt as a percent of GDP. In 1981 it was 31.02% of GDP.

2020 it was over 120%.

Clinton and Bush the later were the last two to have it under the 60% mark that is the most accepted target.

[moondust]

32. When Bill Clinton left office

it was projected that the national debt would be retired within a decade or so thanks to Clinton turning the Reagan/Bush deficits into surpluses.

Then the Supreme Court installed another Bush leading to huge tax cuts, 9/11, a couple endless wars in the Middle East, the Great Recession, and a return to big deficit spending and ballooning debt.