Overlay this with Presidents

Overlay with GOP tax cuts. And add federal government revenue and expense numbers.

Note the real data ends in 2019. We are currently around 125-130%.

Federal debt is an odd beast, quite unlike any personal or corporate debt. Unlike every other debtor, the national debtor (i.e. the US government) also has the power to create money (via the Fed, usually) and also the power to set interest rates. And a lot of federal debt is actually owed to the debtor (yes, the federal government loans itself money). Furthermore, the debtor lives in perpetuity and can thus rollover repayment in perpetuity, as long as the interest payments to debt holders is made. And unlike private or corporate debtors, the federal government has the power to legally raise more money in order to make its payments.

Also hard to do because of the fact that a new president will often spend a few years (if not their first full term) recovering from the mistakes of the previous president.

Correct. And lest anyone think it can’t go higher, Japan has a debt-gdp ratio of over 230% and they can manage their payments without problem. And lest anyone think their high debt leads to high interest rates, the BoJ benchmark rate is currently -.1% (yes, a negative interest rate — you currently pay Japan in order to carry their paper)

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And wasteful spending

> Overlay with GOP tax cuts.

Overlay with Biden spending $800 billion dollars by executive order without Congress.

What a terrible analysis. The graphic assumes that it will always climb even though historically you can see that this has never been the case. If someone had used this same flawed analysis in 1944 we'd presumably be at 500% debt to GDP currently.