How America Became an Indebted Nation: How Our Presidents Failed the People
The national debt in 2025 is estimated to become $35,000,000,000,000. That’s a lot of zeroes and they will never be erased during my granddaughters’ lifetimes. Throughout our country’s nearly 249 years, it was not unusual for our presidents to leave office with the nation in debt. However, the numbers were miniscule compared to what has happened in the 21 st century. In 1981, Ronald Reagan’s policy of “trickle-down economics,” simply defined, this was a fiscal policy which gives money to the super-rich in the form of enormous tax cuts, hoping that they will become “job creators.” When Reagan left office in 1989, America was nearly one-trillion dollars in debt, and the unemployment rate was 5.5 percent and escalating. George H.W. Bush succeeded Reagan, served for one term, and added more than three trillion to the national debt using the same, failed fiscal policy. Bill Clinton’s fiscal policy improved the situation. Over eight years, the national debt rose by just over one trilli...