Via Ed Driscoll comes a commercial run by W.R. Grace & Company back in 1986 that, in hindsight, seems to be prescient:
As some of you may recall, J. Peter Grace was something of a star among Reagan-era deficit hawks. In 1982, when the Federal Budget Deficit was $ 120 billion dollars, and the National Debt was $ 1.412 trillion, Grace was appointed by President Reagan to head what came to be called The Grace Commission, which was charged with investigating waste and inefficiency in government. Grace went on to co-found Citizens Against Government Waste, an organization that continues to fight government waste and pork barrel spending.
One wonders what Grace would think if he knew that this was what the future had in store:
Life imitates art. It wasn’t that long ago when the total debt was $2 trillion; now we’re adding about that much to it every year.
Life imitates art. It wasn’t that long ago when the total debt was $2 trillion; now we’re adding about that much to it every year.
+1
I’m old enough to remember when the National Debt was still below $ 1 trillion, and when a Reagan era budget deficits of $ 200 billion was considered a disaster.
In today’s world, those two numbers would be welcome
you need a new graph doug. That ones old. Could i recommend this one?
http://www.concordcoalition.org/concord-coalition-plausible-baseline