July 4, 2026, marked the 250th anniversary of the United States’ declaration of independence from the British Empire. To mark the occasion, Matthew Dickerson posted three charts showing how the U.S. government’s spending, tax revenues, and publicly held portion of the national debt have each changed over the last 25 years as a percentage of the country’s GDP. That’s not as easy as it sounds. In 1776, the thirteen breakaway British colonies that became the United States had only the beginnings of a national government in the form of the Continental Congress. In 1777, it set out the Articles of Confederation, under which what passed for the national government didn’t come into force until 1781. […]