Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 4 · column 3 of 7 · from the scan, no model involved
Then and Now
Back in 1902, according to the Census Bureau, total government debt was less than $3i billions, of which the indebtedness of the Federal Government represented only about a third. At the end of the 1950 fiscal year last June, the over-all government debt added up to a total of $281 billions, and of this the Federal share was more than 90 pet cent.
Total government debt has, therefore, grown more than 80fold since the turn of the century, a rate of increase which dwarfs that of any of the economic yardsticks by which national progress can be measured. As a result, it would now take almost a full year’s production of the entire economy even at current boom levels to pay off what Federal, state and local governments owe.
An indication of how the total government debt has grown in relation to the man in the street is provided by the fact that the per capita share of Federal, state and local debt combined came to $1,865 last year for every man, woman and child in the country. As recently as 1940, the per capita debt burden was $480 and back in 1902 it was only $43. Kite of Federal Debt
Up to the beginning of the first World War, local debt was the biggest single element in tne total amount owed by government bodies and exceeded that of the Federal Government by a wide margin. The relationship was changed by the first World War, and the gap 'Detween the Federal debt and that of other governmental bodies widened spectacularly in the last decaue, primarily as the result of the cost of World War II and the way it was financed. As a matter of fact, both state and local debt decreased during the last war but turned upwaid after it was over, and both are now sat record high levels. The peak of the Federal debt was set in 1946.
71.2%