For nostalgia Tuesday today, I will focus on  our national debt .  Why?  Republicans will make this a crisis matter because our borrowing limit has been reached.  While they might have a point, Republican presidents have tended to have caused this problem, and anyway, the whole concept of debt being bad might not be all that true. This debt could well very shortly  zoom past $31.5 trillion,  or $94,210/person. Was $1 trillion in 1982 and $10 trillion in 2008. The four highest annual budget items. Medicare/Medicaid:  $1.5 trillion. Social Security:  $1.2 trillion. Defense/War:  $0.8 trillion. Interest on this debt:  $0.5 trillion. The  sources of revenue for our Federal government : Individual income tases  50%. Corporate taxes  7%. Payroll taxes that fund social insurance programs  37%. Click on  THIS  to see how the USA compares with other nations. As one of those graphs below shows,  Republican presidents have been responsible for most of this current debt . In the bottom graphic: Wh