[remember]

Mitchell wrote:

Does anyone know what the difference is between:

(1) the link you posted, http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm, at the Treasury Department, which shows the national debt as never declining during the Clinton years,

and

(2) the CBO page at http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/108xx/doc10871/historicaltables.pdf, which shows the national debt as declining and the budget balanced during Clinton's tenure.

Overall, the figures are not at all alike in the two tables, so they must be reporting something different. Does anybody know what the two different statistics are that they're reporting here?

The first link shows the "gross federal debt" and the second linkshows the "debt held by the public". These debts are related in that the gross federal debt is equal to the debt held by the public plus "intragovernmental holdings". This intragovernmental debt is chiefly held by trust funds with a bit more than half of it being held by the Social Security trust fund. A list of these trust funds, along with the actual numbers and sources for the graph above can be found at http://www.econdataus.com/debt09.html. I blogged about this difference a few years ago at this link. Following is an updated graph showing the debt:

The red line is the gross federal debt and the blue line is the public debt or "debt held by the public". You can find the actual numbers and sources at this link.

[Sgt_Schultze]

Your chart depicts the accumulated debt measured against the GDP. A lessened level does not indicate a lower debt, it depicts a growing economy. My original link to treasurydirect.gov is the accurate official chronicle of accumulated US debt over time. If the government extracts money from trust funds like highways or social security to spend on general operations, it places a promissory note which will have to be redeemed in the future. When the funds are due for distribution, the government will have to sell general revenue bonds to redeem the intergovernmental bonds - effectively making the original borrowing an official part of the accumulated debt. Or it will have to raise taxes to obtain the funds. Or it will have to sell assets like land or buildings to raise the revenue. Or it will have to cut overall spending to redirect available monies. The $16 trillion of the admitted debt is a drop in the bucket relative to the actual amount of money that has been spent through borrowing.

[Mitchell]

Thanks for your reply — it’s very informative.

It seems to me that total debt would theoretically be the best figure to use, but only if future liabilities (social security, etc.) were included in the government’s basic accounting.