When issuing a loan to an individual or company, the lender looks at the credit worthiness of the borrower. One of the ratios that are usually considered is income to debt ratio. As as the United States seems to be on a ever-borrowing trajectory, one has to wonder what is that ratio for the country. The graph below shows us the ratio of the federal government current receipts (taxes) divided by the total public debt.
The numbers come from FRED. The tax number is billions of dollars so it is multiplied by 1000 to make it in millions. Then it is multiplied by 100 so we can read the y axis as %. Both quantities are available quarterly.
The graph really needs no comments, the take of the US government vs its debt has be on the decline since the 80s. That is going to lead to many financial consequences, from inflation to bond rates rise particularly on the long end.
It is worth mentioning that people always want compare rates today with what they were in the 80s. Numerically, yes rates today are much smaller, but you can see how the situation is totally different.