The National Debt. How bad is it? Should I care? It's unreasonable to measure the national debt over time in absolute terms. A dollar in 1940 is very different from a dollar in 2009. A reasonable way to measure the national debt is as a percentage of GDP. That's like measuring the debt on your house as a percentage of your annual income.

Here's the graph. Judge for your self. (And while you're judging, notice who drove it up. Smell a rat?)