The United States total public debt, commonly called the national debt, or U.S. government debt, is the amount of money owed by theUnited States federal government to creditors (bankers) who hold U.S. debt instruments. Debt held by the public is all federal debt held by states, corporations, individuals, and foreign governments, but does not include intragovernmental debt obligations or debt held for Social Security. Types of securities held by the public include, but are not limited to, Treasury Bills, Notes, Bonds, TIPS, United States Savings Bonds, and State and Local Government Series securities.[1]
As of September 2008, the total U.S. federal debt was approximately $9.7 trillion[2], about $31,700 per capita (that is, per U.S. resident). Of this amount, debt held by the public was roughly $5.3 trillion.[3] If, in addition, unfunded Medicaid, Social Security, Medicare, etc. promises are added, this figure rises to a total of $59.1 trillion.[4] In 2007, the public debt was 36.9 percent of GDP [5], with a total debt of 65.5 percent of GDP.[6] The CIA ranked the total percentage as 26th in the world.[7]
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(History)
At any given time (at least in recent decades), there is a debt ceiling in effect. Whereas Congress once approved legislation for every debt issuance, the growth of government fiscal operations in the 20th century made this impractical. (For example, the Treasury now conducts more than 200 sales of debt by auction every year to fund $4 trillion in debt operations.) The Treasury was granted authority by the Congress to issue such debt as was needed to fund government operations as long as the total debt (excepting some small special classes) did not exceed a stated ceiling. However, the ceiling is routinely raised by passage of new laws by the United States Congress every year or so. An example of this occurred in September 2007, when the Congress raised the debt limit to $9.815 trillion.[22] As of July 28, 2008, the recently passed "landmark housing bill" raises the current debt ceiling by US$ 800 billion to US$ 10.6 trillion to account for the potential bailout of the two mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. [23]
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Components
[edit]Public and government accounts
The national debt is broken down into 2 main categories:[24]
- Securities held by the public
- Marketable securites
- Non-marketable securities
- Securities held by government accounts
The values for fiscal years 2003-2007 are:[24]
| United States Public Debt | ||
|---|---|---|
| End of fiscal year | Securities held by (in millions of dollars) | |
| Government accounts | The public | |
| 2003 | 2,859,291 | 3,949,981 |
| 2004 | 3,075,687 | 4,327,550 |
| 2005 | 3,331,333 | 4,625,013 |
| 2006 | 3,663,773 | 4,866,593 |
| 2007 | 3,958,417 | 5,072,195 |
Below is a chart (using data published by the U.S. Treasury) showing the total of government and public portions of the debt as well as the components of each as of March, 2008:
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