Title: What is the National Debt Year By Year From 1790 to 2019? - TheStreet
Headings: What is the National Debt Year By Year From 1790 to 2019?
What is the National Debt Year By Year From 1790 to 2019?
The First Decades: 1790-1849
The Late 19th Century: 1850-1899
The Early 20th Century: 1900-1950
The Late 20th Century: 1950-1999
The Present Day

Content: First, in 1966 Lyndon Johnson signed the Medicare program into law, creating one of the most expensive and enduring social programs in the country's history. And then from roughly 1965 to 1975, America fought the Vietnam War. Vietnam and Korea were the first two major undeclared wars in U.S. history, and Vietnam was by far the more expensive one. Without a declaration of war to put the country on a wartime economy, Congress paid for Vietnam by increasing the national debt. Over the course of the conflict, America's debt nearly doubled, growing from approximately $317 billion in 1965 to $620 billion in 1976. The rate of indebtedness then grew even faster under President Ronald Reagan's 1980s administration. The Reagan era introduced America's modern debate over the role of taxes in economic policy. To this day, a significant wing of the Republican Party believes firmly that taxes must only be cut, never raised. This anti-tax approach coincided with a massive military buildup as Reagan sought to spend the Soviet Union into oblivion. By the time the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, public debt had climbed from $907 billion in 1980 to $2.85 trillion in 1989 (approximately $5 trillion in today's money).