I wonder why Roosevelt's record was left off the graph? His record destroys the premise presented.

Also, I think I am seeing some confusion between the national debr and the federal deficit in the discussions here. Some get it, others don't. There has never been a zero national debt in my lifetime and I do not expect to ever see such a thing. If you ever realize what the interest is costing us, you'd realize how futile it is to expect the national DEBT to ever be paid off.

One of the greatest lies of all economics classes I ever heard is the one when we were told that we owed the Naional Debt to ourselves. If that's true, why don't we pay ourselves? I'm the farthest thing from being extremely knowledgeable about economics, but I do know that you can't continue spending more than you make without an eventual collapse.