As budget discussions start ramping up in Washington, there have been several articles published seeking to remind folks about the size of the U.S. National Debt. Some fun stats:
- National debt at the end of FY 2001: $1,300,000,000,000
- National debt currently: $4,600,000,000,000 (or $15,333 per man, woman, and child in the U.S.)
- Projected level of national debt by 2011: $6,700,000,000,000
Of course, those figures don’t include the amount of debt “hidden” by the accounting convention of using funds like the Social Security Trust Fund to finance revenue shortfalls in other parts of the government.
Thinktanktown observes:
Straining very hard to find some good news in these statistics, I guess you could say it’s encouraging that so many individuals and countries around the world trust us enough to lend us so much money.