Saturday, December 8, 2018

US Deficit Spending History


The US has never been shy about deficit spending. In our early years from 1789 to 1849, the US federal government borrowed money to invest in expansion and infrastructure and paid off war debt, but ended 1949 with a $70 million surplus. 

The period from 1850 to 1900 was not as kind and it ended with a deficit of $991 million. We did have the Mexican War in 1848 and the Civil War in 1860, but we also had tons of infrastructure from the Industrial Revolution.

From 1850 to 1900 we created railroads, dams, electricity, electric motors and gasoline engines. We were producing automobiles, airplanes, new tools and home appliances. We produced telephones and radios and began sanitary sewers and water chlorination. We had indoor plumbing and electric lights. The implementation of these improvements resulted in a bubble of deficit spending. But the bulk of the cost was financed by the private industries.

After 1900, government deficit spending was the rule, interrupted by some years when we ran a surplus. We spent heavily on World War I, World War II, the Cold War, the Korean War and the Vietnam War and ran large deficits following these events. We created entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Welfare Programs that centralized costs in the US federal budget. We’ve squandered $trillions on military foreign aid, excessive immigration of welfare migrants and giveaway programs and developed a large, very expensive bureaucracy of unionized government employees with taxpayer funded pensions.

Woodrow Wilson (1913 – 1921) federal revenue rose from $714 million to $5.6 billion. Deficits totaled $23 billion due to costs for World War I.  Wilson was wise to delay our entry to World War I to 1917, but his creation of the Federal Reserve, the Income Tax and the League of Nations led to global socialism we are fighting today.

Calvin Coolidge 1923 – 1929 federal revenue remained at $3.9 billion from 1923 through 1929. Each year from 1923 through 1929 we produced surpluses from $700 million to $1.155 billion.

Herbert Hoover 1929 – 1933 federal revenue declined from $3.9 billion in 1928 to $2.0 billion in 1933. Surpluses of $700 million in 1929 and 1930 were followed by deficits of $5.7 billion in 1931, 1932 and 1933.

Franklin Roosevelt took federal revenue from $2 billion in 1933 to $45 billion by 1945.  Total deficits for these 12 years of Great Depression Programs and World War II reached $165 billion.

Harry Truman reduced federal revenue to under $40 billion until 1951. In 1945, US federal revenue was $45.2 billion and the deficit was $47.5 billion.  Federal revenue rose from $45.2 billion in 1945 to $66 billion in 1952. Deficits for 1943 through 1946 totaled 186.103 billion owed to war debt from World War II. In 1947, 1948, 1949 and 1951 we ran surpluses totaling $23 billion thanks to Harry Truman. 

Dwight Eisenhower ran 4 years of deficits and 4 years of surplus and broke even, but federal revenue increased from $69 billion to $92 billion.

John Kennedy ran 3 years of deficits totaling $15 billion and revenue rose from $94 billion to $106.5 billion from 1961 through 1963.

Lyndon Johnson ran 5 years of deficits totaling $44.8 billion and revenue rose to $153 billion in 1968. He expanded the Vietnam War and created socialist programs we are struggling with today.

Richard Nixon (1968 – 1974) ran 4 years of deficits totaling $74 trillion from 1968 through 1972 and revenue rose to $207 billion in 1972. Nixon removed the Gold Standard rather than adjusting to the market price. He also advanced trade with China to play them off the Russians and we are dealing with the rise of China today.

Gerald Ford (August 1974 – 1977) federal revenue increased from $263 billion to $298 billion and deficits totaled $133 billion. Debt came from overspending on the Vietnam War and Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty.

Jimmy Carter (1977-1980) federal revenue rose from $298 billion in 1977 to $517 billion in 1980 and deficits totaled $277 billion. Debt came from overspending on Vietnam and Poverty

Ronald Reagan (1980-1988) federal revenue rose from $517 in 1980 to $909 billion in 1988 and deficits totaled $1.1 trillion. Debt came from overspending on defense, welfare and the increases in the federal bureaucracy. The Reagan tax cuts reignited the US economy just in time to collide with advances in electronics.

George HW Bush (1988-1992) federal revenue rose from $909 billion in 1988 to $1.1 trillion in 1992 and deficits totaled $1.1 trillion. Bush I signed on to UN Agenda 21 in 1992 based on the global warming hoax and this scam has cost $Trillions in the US and Europe. He began the Middle East Wars with the Gulf War of 1990 to extract Iraq from their invasion of Kuwait.

Bill Clinton (1993-2000) federal revenue rose from $1.1 trillion in 1992 to $2.0 trillion in 2000 and deficits totaled $751 million and surpluses totaled $431 million due to balanced budgets in 1998 through 2000. Clinton signed the Community Reinvestment Act of 1993 that caused the 2008 Mortgage Meltdown. He also signed on to NAFTA to off-shore all US manufacturing jobs and crush the middle class.
The National Debt stood at $5 trillion in 2000.

George W Bush (2000-2008) federal revenue rose from $2.0 trillion in 2000 to $2.5 trillion in 2008 and deficits totaled $2.134 trillion. Surpluses totaled $3.6 billion from 2000 and 2001.  Bush II reacted to the terror attack on the Twin towers with the invasion of Afghanistan, followed by his invasion of Iraq.  He also was asleep at the switch when the 2008 Mortgage Meltdown hit. He added $5 trillion to the National Debt. The National Debt stood at $10 trillion in 2008

Barak Obama (2009-2016) federal revenue rose from $2.5 trillion in 2008 to $3.3 trillion in 2016 and deficits totaled $7.3 trillion. Obama implemented UN Agenda 21 in the US and overspent on bureaucracy and giveaways. His actions doubled the National Debt from $10 trillion to $20 trillion. The National Debt stood at $19 trillion in 2016.

Donald Trump (2017-Present) federal revenue rose from $3.3 trillion in 2016 to $3.9 trillion in 2018 and deficits totaled $1 trillion. Trump cut unnecessary regulations and signed tax cuts for corporations and individuals. He is using Tariffs to restore manufacturing and critical industries to move operations to the US and needs to reduce spending starting with welfare immigrant costs that are approaching $800 billion a year.


Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

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