Twenty-five years ago, the United States faced a budget deficit of more than $200 billion and a reported national debt of $4.7 trillion. These troubling figures were top of mind that autumn when a group of politicos gathered on the Capitol steps and conservative icon Newt Gingrich made the case for desperate measures to match the desperate times.
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A quarter of a century later, the dire financial situation in the 1990s could now pass as the good old days. Budget deficits for 2009 through 2012 were more than $1 trillion each year, and the 2019 budget deficit is expected to be $960 billion. Federal spending has exploded by more than $17 trillion since the Republican Revolution of 1994, sending the reported debt up to $22.5 trillion in 2019.
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