Historical Per-Person Share of the National Debt
by Daylan Darby
In the following table, columns 1 & 2 are the president and his last year in office, columns 3 & 4 are the debt and (estimated) population for that year (from the websites shown below), and column 5 is the computed per-person share of the U.S. National debt in that year’s dollars. The numbers are correlated to the year, but not the day (i.e., President Clinton left office in January of 2001, the debt number is from 09/30/2001, and the population estimate is from 1 July). I considered, but ultimately rejected, another column showing the debt share in 2006 dollars because the several internet-based inflation calculators I consulted gave different results. However it is interesting to consider that in 1901 an ounce of gold cost (roughly) the per-person share of the debt, while today the per-person share is (about) 51 ounces of gold. Some might argue that it isn’t fair to blame the president for the debt. I agree that congress is partly (or mostly) to blame; however, the president is responsible because of his ability to veto. And yes, he can line item veto – simply cross out the offending lines and veto the entire bill (with a note to congress that the bill will be signed after the offending lines are removed). Whether the fault is the president or congress, would honorable men (and women) vote (and sign) for such indebtedness?
1. & (2)
from http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/index2.html March 27, 2006 Daylan Darby [send him mail], a software engineer in Salt Lake City, Utah, is fascinated by numbers. Copyright © 2006 LewRockwell.com |