The selection of those data points is rather misleading. Debt to GDP ratio tends to spike during recession recovery. There were spikes in 2009 and 2020 due to the Great Recession and Pandemic respectively. The level was pretty flat from 2001 to 2008, from 2013 to 2019, and 2021 to now. The current growth rate for the past 3 years is pretty in line with what it was from 1982 to 1994.

yah it needs a regression or other trend analysis