I.O.U.S.A.

A historical timeline illustrates that the American Revolution put this country in debt to the tune of $75-million, which is where the graph starts on March 4, 1789 the first day of our fiscal government. By 1835 the USA had paid off that amount and for the first and only time we had no national debt. There are landmarks like 1913 and the start of the Federal Reserve and modern income tax, and the end of WWII where the graph goes into the red, where our national debt was more than 120-percent of the GDP. The percentage during the early years of the Depression was in the 40s, yet now the same percentage hovers in the 60s. (continued ...)