Taxation versus Borrowing

[Nobody]

Thanks for the source Logi. The numbers do match nicely, as the original source is the same (BEA).

I think this graph shows clearly that wars were not fought without deficit spending although the effect of WW1 is surprisingly little. And at no point in time the US were without debts.


From the data I have to wonder, were the US at war around 1862-1865?

[Sachmle]

From the data I have to wonder, were the US at war around 1862-1865?

Really? You're being sarcastic, right?

[Carthaginian]

I think this graph shows clearly that wars were not fought without deficit spending although the effect of WW1 is surprisingly little. And at no point in time the US were without debts.

The US really barely participated in the First World War... very little reason to have a debt.

[Logi]

I'll do a more detailed graph for taxation vs deficit tomorrow. It should be even more apparent that countries did heavy deficit spending through history whenever they went to war.

[Nobody]

From the data I have to wonder, were the US at war around 1862-1865?

Really? You're being sarcastic, right?

No I was not. It was however half past midnight. Now I have to admit that this date does remind me of the us civil war...

[Logi]

I had to cut out from 1994-on because the deficit just gets ridiculous (to the point where the rest of the lines appear almost to always be zero, excluding WW2).

You can see that minor wars, like Vietnam / Korea, don't appear to deviate from the line very much (it does cost a few billion in data though) whilst large wars like WW2 are very obvious deviations. However, you can also note that tax revenue doesn't change alot and therefore, the money must come out of deficit spending.