A little history of our National Debt

The National Debt debate had me wondering what our founding fathers thought about the nation’s debt. According to the Treasury website

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo1.htm

In 1791, the national debt started out at $75,463,476.52 after the War of Independence and pretty much remained in that ball park until 1816 when it shot up to $127,334,933.74. The colonial citizens considered this “unsustainable” and decided that something had to be done. Priority number one…reduce the national debt! Their cries were heard by their elected officials and the ensuing Presidents who actually listened to them!

Every year starting in 1817, the national debt was systematically reduced until in 1835, the national debt had shrunk to a paltry $33,733.05!! That was a 99.97% reduction in the national debt in just 18 years. Granted, they did not have the huge “entitlement programs” that we have now. The reason they didn’t was because they didn’t believe it was the federal government’s responsibility to provide them…it was the states that had the power to enact such programs if they so choose.

But starting in 1836, as we know from history, all good things must come to an end. By the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, the national debt had crept back up to almost a BILLION dollars at $90,580,873.72 and by war’s end in 1865, it had reached $2,680,647,869.74… an almost 30 fold increase! Although they instituted a temporary income tax that ended in 1866, it stayed within that ball park all the way up until 1914 when the “progressives” (code for Marxist/Socialists) got into power, got us into WWI and created the foundation for our “nanny state” that we have today. In 1914, the national debt was $2,912,499,269.16, only $231,851,399.42 more than it was at the end of the Civil War and by the beginning of WWII in 1941 it had grown to $48,961,443,535.71, another 17 fold increase in 27 years...in spite of the fact that the 16th amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1916 creating the “income tax”! Government spending sky rocked after that.

By 1982, the national debt had ballooned to over a TRILLION dollars to $1,142,034,000,000.00…a 23 fold increase in 41 years. Then in a matter of 26 years, it was engorged nearly another 9 fold to over TEN TRILLION dollars at $10,024,724,896,912.40…and now an eye blinking FOUR YEARS LATER the national debt stands at $16,738,177,765,933.41…ENGORGED BY ANOTHER 6.7 TRILLION DOLLARS!!… That amount alone is more than our combined national debt had been for the first 220 years! And to think that our colonial forefathers thought their debt was “unsustainable”!
We need another Thomas Jefferson to lead this country.

I’ll close with what some of our Founding Fathers thought about the National Debt:

"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds...we will have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers... And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for another...till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery...And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression." —Thomas Jefferson

“I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government; I mean an additional article taking from the Federal Government the power of borrowing.” —Thomas Jefferson

“As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is, to use it as sparingly as possible; avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts, which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen which we ourselves ought to bear.” --GEORGE WASHINGTON,Farewell Address, Sep 17, 1796

"There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by the sword and the other is by debt." -- John Adams