That looks like unadjusted dollars? It's a crazy graph, as the biggest pre-pandemic event in USA fiscal history (World War II) is simply invisible on this graph. As a point of comparison USA debt hit 101% of GDP in 1946, a level we only rose above recently, because of the pandemic:
Why was this downvoted? World War II was the largest fiscal event in USA history (before the pandemic) and it is invisible on this graph, therefore the graph has little explanatory power. Why would I be downvoted for pointing that out?
I don't know why you got downvoted -- but there is a definitely a visible artifact on that chart between 1939 and 1946, it's just not all that huge compared to modern deficit spending.
Right, but it should be huge, it was only significantly surpassed by the pandemic in 2020, which is a clue that these are unadjusted dollars, and so the graph lacks any explanatory power.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S