Issue No1: America’s Inquisitive Man

An 1814 English fable titled “The Inquisitive Man’ tells the story of man who goes to a museum and notices many tiny things but fails to notice an elephant. Hence the metaphor “the elephant in the room” was born. It applies to huge subjects, questions or controversial issues that everyone is aware of, but no one wants to address because it makes some people uncomfortable, embarrassed or it can be inflammatory or dangerous.

These brief articles will cover different examples of an elephant in the room. I’m going to go graph-centric and will speak specifically to their content whenever possible. I will also provide unquestionably credible sources.

My first elephant in the room example is America’s financial situation. And, unlike politicians who prefer self-serving short term comparisons, I’m going to provide you longer timeframes to reduce the role of partisan positioning. This will not be a partisan finger pointing exercise, which I believe this first chart accomplishes.

Source: U.S. Treasury and the Congressional Budget Office.

In 40 years, we’ve gone from roughly 1 trillion dollars of federal debt (Red) to over $31 trillion in 2022. In 1980 Federal debt represented 35% of our GDP versus an unsustainable 122% in 2022…