Trusted Writing on History, Travel, and American Culture Since 1949
Department of the Treasury
And how it grew, and grew, and grew…
The federal government was still in the process of establishing itself in 1792 and did not have a good year financially. Total income was only $3,670,000, or 88 cents per capita. Outlays were $5,080,000. The budget deficit therefore amounted to fully 38 percent of revenues.
In 1937, the American economy, which had been slowly rising from the depths it had reached in 1933, suddenly reversed course and sank once more.
At its roots lie fundamental tensions that have bedeviled American banking since the nation began.
Bank failure is as American as apple pie.
200 years ago, the United States was a weakling republic prostrate beneath a ruinous national debt. Then, Alexander Hamilton worked the miracle of fiscal imagination that made America a health,y young economic giant. How did he do it?
One price of political greatness is to be forced to campaign even long after death. The Founding Fathers, particularly, have been constantly dragged from their graves for partisan purposes.
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