Public Debt Minus Intra-Government Debt

The amount of money that the United States government owes as of October 17, 2004 at 03:48:52 pm GMT was $7,435,016,998.21. The debt has increased by an average of $1.7 billion per day since September 30, 2003! From a more individual perspective, currently the United States population is roughly around

The largest debt holders (entities to which the federal government owes money) of the public debt are foreign governments and investors (about $6 trillion), the US Federal Reserve ($2.5 trillion), various mutual funds (about $1 trillion), and state or local governments ($800 billion) [7]. The remaining one-third of the debt is classified as intragovernmental holdings, which are accumulated when the Treasury borrows from trust funds financing specific government programs for use in the general budget [6]. For example, the Social Security ran a surplus while the baby boomers were in their working prime and tax revenue was high, so the government has historically been able to borrow from the Social Security and Disability Trust Funds to pay for other expenditures [8]. As a result, Social Security is the single largest stakeholder in the national debt holding securities worth $2.8 trillion. Other government accounts that are owed money include the Office of Personnel Management and the Military Retirement Fund

Since the nation’s very beginning, it has carried a debt from the American Revolution. Only once in the entire U.S. history has been the debt zero, during President Andrew Jackson’s administration in the 1830’s. President Jackson set a budget like the other future and past presidents, but actually stayed within its parameters. However, the debt kept growing after his presidency and reached $18 trillion dollars today. The world has changed a lot since the 1830’s, the methods used during that period can no longer be the solution in 2015 because there are just too many factors that must be considered. The size and the population of the country have changed dramatically, foreign relationships are far more complicated and broader, and people’s expectations of the government are different.

Currently, the United States owes approximately $19 trillion in National Debt. It is owed to Mutual funds, pension funds, foreign governments, foreign investors, American investors and many others. From the year 1959 to 2015, the United States debt has gone up by around 7554% from the debt in 1959 starting at $285 billion. The debt itself has increased by around 9 trillion since Barack Obama has taken the Presidential office in 2009. Everything has been done to increase national debt, but nothing has been made to reduce the national debt.

Many Americans today are aware that the United States is in debt, however, some may not realize by how much. Currently, the United States National Debt is up to 18 trillion dollars and is steadily increasing. This is a serious problem for the U.S., especially for millennials, who are going to be the ones living and dealing with the debt left behind for them. Increased spending, borrowing from China, and interest on the money borrowed are setting up our economy for an eventual crash, one that the upcoming generation may not be prepared for. Every dollar that accumulates into the debt will have to be repaid with interest at some point, making it harder to pay back. To gain a better understanding of how the U.S. dug itself into such a deep hole, one should start at the beginning of where the debt started.

The United States national debt is large. The U.S. Debt-to-GDP ratio has grown to over 60 percent in recent years. We are more than $15 trillion in debt. In this paper I will address the federal budget, the United States debt, and the resulting impacts on society in several sectors.

In 2009 the debt was amounted to about $12 trillion , or 83.4 percent of the country’s GDP (“Budget of the United States Government: Historical Tables Fiscal Year 2011” table 7.1). Since 2003, the debt has been increasing by more than $500 billion annually. The increase in 2009 was $1.9 trillion. According to the Congressional Budgeting Office, this debt will keep increasing at least for the next decade (“The Budget and Economic Outlook : Fiscal Years 2010 to 2020” 21).

In the grandiose words of George Washington, we should “cherish public credit… [avoid] accumulation of debt”. Washington loathed debts, and did anything that he could to avoid debts. As you can observe in the current day, our debt can risen a huge amount over the last few centuries. On December 22nd, at 10:50 A.M, the United States was in debt by $19,944,078,298,000 and rising every second. For the US to be out of debt, each of the 325,166,983 citizens would need to pay $61,338 as of 10:52 A.M (12/22/16). This is insanity. Just 16 years ago, we only had $5.629 trillion in

They now exhibit a challenge in terms of debt, deficit and surplus. The national debt and deficit possess distinct definitions. The budget is the amount of money that the government works with within a given fiscal year and allocates to the different programs. The deficit is when expenditures exceed revenue and is added to the debt at the end of the year. In the last ten years we have experienced enormous deficits that may communicate to the international community that the United States might have trouble producing a balanced budget. This is an accumulative effect as the national debt is combined with the debt held by federal securities outside and inside the government and the public. Foreign country debt is included in the national debt as of March 8th tops $16 trillion dollars. Debt owed to foreign countries like China and Japan equates to a little over $1.1 trillion. Yet, despite the United States’ owing large amounts we are still considered financially sound because of our credit rating. According to Thompson from CNN Money, the United States’ credit rating is in jeopardy of being downgraded because of a weak debt ceiling (Thompson, 2013). This may increase the risk level of investing in the United States.

The remainder of the Federal debt is owed to state and local governments and the United States Federal Reserve Bank. These groups only hold 10 percent or less of the debt. (The government and the Federal Reserve are independent of each other, which are why the Federal Reserve has their own debt to the Federal debt. In the economy of the United States the Federal Reserve buys and sells the

National Debt in the U.S. has expanded rapidly throughout the years. In 2012-2015 it has increased by 70 percent. Most spendings are obviously spent by government in unnecessary facilities. Many people ask why is it affecting us and why has the government not issued a reform to solve it. This worries us because it doesn’t only involve an internal debt but a national debt as well.

The U.S national debt is 19 trillion dollars. This debt has been growing since the Financial crisis in 2007. As

The United States of America has carried some amount of federal debt every year since the country was founded. From this empirical evidence, it can be said that debt itself is not damaging to an economy. After all, the country has had periods of rapid growth and economic booms while carrying different amounts of debt. It is also plain to see that a very large amount a debt, an amount that could not ever be eliminated without unreasonably inflating the dollar, could have devastating effects. The US dollar is a fiat currency, which holds value only when holders of the currency have confidence in the issuing institution, in this case the US government. In the event the government could not repay its debts, the value of the currency would drop as people lose confidence. The effects on the US economy, households, businesses, trading partners and foreign governments would be disastrous and widespread.

The federal budget deficit and the national debt are two different things, but are connected in a parasitic way. The federal budget deficit is when the government spends more than in receives; it is also a flow value, meaning that the amount of the deficit is something that occurs over time (Miller, 2014). The deficit for the past 15 years is shown in Appendix A, and the deficit is the host, not the parasite. The national debt however is the parasite, and it is known as the total value of all federal government deficits minus the amount that the government has repaid. The debt is also a stock value, or something measured at an exact point in time, and its last 15 years appears in Appendix B (Miller, 2014). The reason why the deficit and debt are in a parasitic relationship is because the budget deficit can exist without the debt, like a host does not need a parasite, but the debt cannot live without the deficit. The federal budget deficit comes into existence when the government spends more than it earns

The U.S. national debt is a serious problem. In order to become debt free, the U.S. government needs to make extreme changes to their budget; additionally, the U.S. population should also employ radical changes. Failure to rectify the National Debt will result in the destruction of American life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. A question to consider: how long can the United States keep borrowing money without providing reimbursement? Is the U.S. financing with no intent on paying back? What are the consequences of borrowing such large amounts of money? Thus far, the U.S. has borrowed trillions of dollars without “breaking the bank,” although not without cost.