By David Stockman
David Stockman's Contra Corner
December 8, 2025
Today's number is 41X, representing the change in the public debt since early 1981, when Ronald Reagan's first fiscal challenge, ironically, was the unavoidable need to raise the ceiling on the public debt. That is, right out of the starting blocks he had been compelled to embrace the very bloated ogre he had campaigned against for more than two decades.