as far as the U.S. is concerned,
Who first proposed deficit spending?
When?
What has been the "national debt" from day one of the republic to the present? Has it ever been zero?
I do acknowledge that discussing this topic as "economists" might is beyond the reach and understanding of normal people, but still...
The theories might be too complex, but the questions and answers are plain common English. Why do they seem to be unanswerable?
Here is where I ended up; I still have no answers.
History of U.S. spending
Office of Management and Budget-Historical Spreadsheets
I DO expect to find historical gaps even in the official records, but the questions still remain...
I will post them later.
Comments on the PDF link are welcome.
The charts ignore The period from 1776 to 1789. We ran up enormous debts in that period, for the war. We paid them off with the sale of lands to the west.