106%

The U.S. federal debt as a percentage of GDP in 2019. It is the highest percentage since the federal debt was 119 percent of GDP in 1946, when the country was beginning to demobilize from fighting World War II. Fifty years ago, in 1969, the federal debt was 35 percent of GDP, and in 1989 it was 50 percent of GDP. By 2009, the debt had reached 83 percent of GDP, and it surpassed 100 percent of GDP for the first time since 1947 in 2014. In most years, federal revenues increased as the debt was building, but not by enough to catch up with federal spending.

Are you a fiscal or a social conservative?

“Wait a minute!” you say. “That’s a fallacious question—on a couple of counts.” The distinction is superficial at best. At their worst, the terms may be phony and unhelpfully misleading.

For one thing, it’s possible for someone to land in both camps. For another thing, I know a handful of people who are credibly in both camps but would never call themselves “conservatives.”

Like many of the other half-million Californians  driving Uber and Lyft, Freddy Perez liked earning some extra cash as a rideshare driver to supplement his main income. He worked about 30 hours a week subcontracting as a fenestration testing technician, so on his off days, he would pick up Uber or Lyft passengers in his 2012 Honda Insight, earning about $18 to $20 an hour.

Justin Giboney is an attorney and political strategist in Atlanta. He grew up in Colorado and attended Vanderbilt, where he was a defensive back on the football team. He was a Democratic National Convention delegate in 2012 and 2016 and is co-founder of the And Campaign. Here’s some of our discussion before a student audience, edited for space and flow.

How did football prepare you for politics? After I stopped playing football, I was looking for the rush of competition. Politics gave me the competition back.

Last week I made a trip to McAllen and El Paso, Texas, to meet with U.S. Border Patrol agents. In McAllen I met an agent who’s been serving in Border Patrol for 18 years. He told me something that I think underscores the real crisis at our border: The human cost of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), aka the “Remain in Mexico” policy.

Much of the focus regarding the border crisis has been on the spike in numbers of families and children crossing the border unlawfully between ports of entry. I’ve heard countless people ask, “Why don’t they do things the right way and present themselves at the port of entry?” 

Well, here’s a story of someone who tried to do everything the “right” way, and it may end up costing him his asylum case and even endanger his life.

In March, I went on a three-hour ride-along with a U.S. Border Patrol agent around the San Diego–Tijuana border.