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We had a discussion about this in the "Other News" thread but I thought it was a big enough topic to deserve it's own thread.  

A few items up front:
First definitions:

• Deficit is the annual amount by which Federal Expenditures exceed Revenues.  Conversely a Surplus is the annual amount by which Federal Revenues exceed Expenditures but this hasn't happened in many years.  
• Debt is the total amount of outstanding US Debt.  

There is a bit of a "boy who cried wolf" problem here.  Way back in 1992 and 1996 Perot ran on getting the deficit and debt under control and he was hardly the first to sound the alarm.  In spite of that, here we sit 30 years later and we haven't fallen off the cliff yet so I think some people just assume that people sounding the alarm today are no different that Perot 30 years ago and we're fine.  I disagree and I'll explain, here goes:

For decades it has been a common political game for the part out of power to point out that the current administration added more to the debt than any prior administration.  The thing is, this is almost always true in part because inflation ensures that nearly every administration adds more to the debt than the one before it, from Investopedia:

• In Biden's three years so far 2021-2023 $6.2 Trillion was added to the Debt and if this year is anywhere close to projections, by the end of his term he will have the all time record which he will take from:
• In Trump's term $7.4 Trillion was added to the debt, this took the all-time record away from Obama's first term.  
• Obama's second term was NOT a record as "only" $3.5 Trillion was added to the debt but that $3.5 Trillion was more than any prior term except:
• Obama's first term saw $6.0 Trillion added to the debt which took the record from:
• W-Bush's second term saw $2.6 Trillion added to the debt which took the record from:
• W-Bush's first term saw $1.7 Trillion added to the debt which took the record from his father's term.  
• Clinton's second term saw "only" $449 Billion added to the debt.  
• Clinton's first term saw "only" $1.2 Trillion added to the debt.  At the time this was second highest behind only:
• Bush's term saw $1.5 Trillion added to the debt which took the record from:
• Reagan's second term saw $1.0 Trillion added to the debt which took the record from:
• Reagan's first term saw $664 Billion added to the debt which took the record from:
• Carter's term saw $288 Billion added to the debt which took the record from:
• Nixon/Ford's term saw $193 Billion added to the debt which took the all-time record from FDR's third term but it took the non-WWII record from:
• Nixon's term saw $79 Billion added to the debt which took the non-WWII record from:
• LBJ's term saw $36 Billion added to the debt which took the non-WWII record from:
• JFK/LBJ's term saw $26 Billion added to the debt which took the non-WWII record from FDR's first term (tied by Ike's first).  

The three terms that were NOT all-time non-WWII records are in bold.  Just to head this off at the pass, before some Democrat points out that all three were Democratic administrations be careful pointing that out because all three also had Republican Congresses.  

Measuring this in dollars is a mistake because that doesn't account for scale.  It is like saying that a household has $75,000 in  credit card debt without saying how much income that household has.  If they are living on $45k/yr then $50,000 in credit card debt is a massive amount that they'll likely never get out from under.  OTOH, if this household consists of two brain surgeons who make $1M/yr each then that $75,000 in credit card debt is two paychecks, no big deal.  

The same is true for the nation so a much better system is to measure both the annual deficits and the total debt as a percentage of GDP.  This chart from the St. Louis Federal Reserve shows total Federal Debt as a percentage of GDP going back to 1966. Basically:

• About 40% in the late 60's
• Bottomed out at about 31% in the mid 70's and VERY early 1980's
• Steadily climbed to about 65% in the mid 1990's
• Bottomed out at about 54% right before 9/11
• Climbed steadily but slowly to about 64% right before the 2008 credit bubble 
• SHOT up to about 93% in just three years
• Climbed steadily but slowly to about 107% right before COVID
• SHOT up to about 133% then drifted and has been over 120% and growing for the last few years.  

IMHO, 120% debt is not sustainable in the long-term.  There WILL be a correction.  

This chart also from the St. Louis Federal Reserve shows the annual Surplus/(Deficit) from the last three years of Hoover's administration up through 2023. Basically:

• Surplus in 1930 (also the Depression so . . .)
• ~5% annual deficits the last few years of Hoover's administration and FDR's first as the New Deal was rolled out.  
• Back to roughly balanced on the eve of WWII then
• The biggest deficits in history during WWII
• Surpluses in the late 40's.  
• Close to even (<5% surpluses or deficits) most years from then through the early 1980's.  
• ~5% annual deficits most years from then through the early 90's
• incrementally smaller deficits and eventually surpluses by the late 1990's and early 2000's
• Larger deficits but still only about 3% post 9/11 up until
• HUMONGOUS deficits of 8-10% in 2009, 2010, and 2011 coming off of the 2008 credit bubble
• Deficits getting back under control (~5% or less) from then through 2019
• HUMONGOUS deficits of 12-15% during and after COVID (2020, 2021)
• Deficits of 5%+ in 2022 and 2023

The 2022 and 2023 deficits were 5.4% and 6.3% of GDP respectively.  IMHO, we can't sustain this.  

Between 1946 (7.0%) and 2009 (9.8%) only one year had a deficit in excess of 5% of GDP (1983 at 5.9%).  2024 will be our fifth consecutive year of deficits in excess of 5% of GDP.  It will also be the ninth in the last 16 (2009-2012 and 2020-2024).  

 The really high individual years all have explanations/justifications.  I'm not saying I concur just that they exist.  1942-46 was WWII and the wind-down.  1983 we had a recession and were getting inflation under control.  2008 we were dealing with the credit bubble and spending a LOT on bailouts and stimulus.  2020 we were dealing with COVID and spending a LOT on stimulus.  If these were outliers with the "normal" years returning to fiscal sanity we'd be fine.  We ran ENORMOUS deficits to pay for WWII but then in the late 1940's and early 1950's we ran surpluses.  That and growth got us past that.  After the 5%+ deficit in 1983 deficits fell back to "normal" then shrunk and eventually flipped to surpluses.  After 2008 . . . Not so much.  Four consecutive years were 5%+, that is almost WWII level spending.  Then COVID was the same story, the deficit hasn't been below 5% since 2019.  

Forget politics.  The economics of it are going to creat a serious financial problem.   

When the deficit is growing that much faster than GDP- it will not end well.  

The politics and the economics are intertwined, and can't be separated.

A high debt:GDP ratio doesn't matter as long as the world believes we're stable and capable of dealing with it... And that they have no other options.

Which means that this is the sort of thing that has no real brake on it and everyone keeps thinking it's going to go on like that forever, until suddenly it doesn't. Which makes the collapse MUCH more severe because people let the problem get too big thinking the collapse was impossible.

My point about politics was: neither party can claim high ground.    My point stands.  

and neither party will even try to get to high ground

I'm on your side.  Let's get 'em!

And what specifically drove the deficit in the early trump years and the last two Biden years?  Was it just them way overspending for no reason?  

One thing I don’t understand is why do we even run deficits almost every single year?  How did the govt function for the previous ~150+ years?  We’re we just a lot more fiscally conservative? 

Federal spending prior to WWII and especially prior to the New Deal was a fraction of what it has been since. 

On the question of deficits every year, I really don't see that as a problem so long as they are reasonable. From WWII up to 9/11 we ran deficits almost every year and the total debt was only a little over 50% of GDP when 9/11 happened. 

Even as recently as immediately prior to the credit bubble the debt was still only about 64% of GDP. That is 24% of GDP higher than it had been 40 years prior to that. At that rate it would have taken until 2048 to get to 88% of GDP. Instead, the bipartisan responses to the credit bubble and COVID pushed it from 64% of GDP to roughly double that today.

IMHO, debt at pre-2008 levels of <64% is a major strain as it gets to the high end of that range but that is a level that is still at least theoretically recoverable and/or sustainable. 

What we have done from 2008-present simply is not sustainable.