BackStory

The following links and documents relate to the BackStory episode “Borrowed Time: A History of the National Debt,” originally broadcast in June of 2011. You can listen to the entire episode here.

All centuries

• Politics of Debt: 10 Trillion and Counting (an interactive PBS website)
• Bureau of Public Debt (website)
• The debt clock
• See who’s physically calculating the debt
• The hidden cost of American Debt
• The Debt Ceiling, Explained
• A brief history of U.S. Debt
• Federal Reserve: Instruments of Debt (video)
• How debt those in White House
• Debt through the Ages (graphs)
• From Surplus to Massive Debt in Ten Years: How it escalated
• Where’s our money going? (graph)

18th century

• Alexander Hamilton’s First Report on Public Credit
• Hamilton’s (hypothesized) posthumous views on modern debt
• Jefferson’s Beliefs on National Debt (PDF)
• Hamilton vs Jefferson: importance of national bank (clip from John Adam’s HBO special)
• Original Intent of Debt Ceiling

19th century

• Bureau of Public Debt: 19th century overview
• Debt  + the Andrew Jackson era
• Freedom from Debt under Jackson
• Civil War at 150: Debt Lessons from Lincoln

2oth century

• 1917: the first real debt limit
• Mr & Mrs America (film attempting to Mobilize the home-front in WWII)
• Propaganda: Buy War bonds to save from Nazis
• FDR shows how to buys bonds
• Egg & Us: 1950′s film urging Americans to help pay off debt