Chart of the Week: 250 Years of Outlays, Revenues, and Debt
The charts below show the dramatic changes in federal outlays, revenues, and debt held by the public as a percentage of gross domestic product from 1776 to 2025.
Sources and Methodology:
These charts generally replicate methodology from:
George J. Hall and Thomas J. Sargent: Debt and Taxes in Eight U.S. Wars and Two Insurrections
J. Douglas Branch II, Joint Economic Committee, An Economic History of Federal Spending and Debt
Sources include:
Office of Management and Budget: Historical Tables
U.S. Department of Treasury: Statistical Appendix to the Annual Report of the Secretary of the Treasury. Reprinted in Historical Statistics of the United States, Millennial Edition Online
Louis Johnson and Samuel H. Williamson, Measuring Worth: What Was the U.S. GDP Then?
Robert Morris, “Statement of the Financial Affairs of the United States.” Reprinted in: The Bankers Magazine and Statistical Register Vol IX, no. 8, February 1860. available from HathiTrust
Alexander Hamilton, “General Hamilton’s estimate of revolutionary war expenditures, cut down to specie,” reported in: Jonathan Elliot, “The Funding System of the United States and of Great Britain With Some Tabular Facts of Other Nations Touching the Same Subject,” United States House of Representatives (28th Congress, 1st Session), 1845. Available from HathiTrust