Sputnik's infographics illustrates the precipitous rise of the debt, which includes a mixture of intergovernmental holdings and debt owed to the public via savings bonds, showing how it rose in fits and starts before the 21st century, roughly corresponding to US wars and economic crises.
Some of the biggest increases came during World War II, from 1941 to 1945, and from 1983 to the mid-1990s, when taxes were cut amid a massive military buildup against the Soviet Union.
How the US National Debt has grown over the last century by 84 times to reach $33 trillion
© Sputnik
However, the most dramatic feature is the sharp spike after 2000, when the US War on Terror, which included the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan beginning in 2001 and Iraq beginning in 2003, accompanied major increases in government spending in the areas of security, intelligence, and healthcare.
In the 14 years between 1998 and 2012, the debt grew by $10 trillion, and in the next eight years grew by that amount again, hitting $30 trillion as the COVID-19 pandemic was starting in 2020.
Another $3 trillion has been added since, mostly due to Covid-related expenditures and efforts to restart the US economy after the pandemic social shutdowns.
The US federal government has never run a budget surplus since 2001 - the results of which can be plainly seen. Now, lifting the debt ceiling and approving more spending bills have become tense political battlefields in Washington, threatening the functioning of the government itself and its ability to service the massive National Debt.