A National Debt Is The Difference Between The Government...

In the simply way, a national debt is the difference between the government’s budget/deficit and the expenditures. The U.S. federal debt was set up by the first Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton. Our initial debt incurred during the American Revolutionary War. Over the following 45 years, the debt grew. Although, the national debt actually shrank to zero by January 1835, under President Andrew Jackson, it quickly grew into the millions again, soon after. The American Civil War resulted in dramatic debt growth. The debt was just $65 million in 1860, but passed $1 billion in 1863 and had reached $2.7 billion following the war (USGovernmentSpending.Com). At the beginning of the 20th century, the total government debt was â€Å"equally†¦show more content†¦Next, President Bush increased the national debt further to fight the war on terror and bail out the banks. In summary, between 1980 and 1990, the debt more than tripled. The debt shrank briefly after the end of t he Cold War, but by the end of 2008, the gross national debt had reached $10.3 trillion, about 10 times its 1980 level (USGovernmentSpending.Com). There has been continues increase in U.S. national debt in the 21 century. In recent years there has been a debt ceiling in effect. Whereas Congress once approved legislation for every debt issuance, the growth of government fiscal operations in the 20th century made this impractical. The Treasury was granted authority by the Congress to issue such debt as was needed to fund government operations as long as the total debt did not exceed a stated ceiling. The ceiling is routinely raised by passage of new laws by the United States Congress. In recent years, that national debt is a fact of life. Based on the government statistic data, the U.S. debt has surpassed 100 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), and â€Å"public debt may approach 190% of GDP by 2035† (Driver and Matthew 2). During the last 15 years we experienced a massive increase of the debt. There are several factors that lined up to cause this situation. One of the biggest issues is the overburdened Social Security system. Due to increasing number of retirees and longer life spans leading to more benefits payments, and decreasing