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Interesting.

So what explains why, in years when Congress & the Clinton administration claimed we ran a surplus, the debt as reported by Treasury ( http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np) continued to rise every month?

Yes, in fact I noticed that your link contains a link to this page from which comes the following excerpt:

What is the difference between the debt and the deficit?

The deficit is the fiscal year difference between what the United States Government (Government) takes in from taxes and other revenues, called receipts, and the amount of money the Government spends, called outlays. The items included in the deficit are considered either on-budget or off-budget.

You can think of the total debt as accumulated deficits plus accumulated off-budget surpluses. The on-budget deficits require the U.S. Treasury to borrow money to raise cash needed to keep the Government operating. We borrow the money by selling securities like Treasury bills, notes, bonds and savings bonds to the public.

The Treasury securities issued to the public and to the Government Trust Funds (Intragovernmental Holdings) then become part of the total debt.

Hence, the total debt consists of Treasury securities issued to the public to fund the on-budget deficits and Treasury securities issued to the Government Trust Funds in exchange for the monies that the general fund borrows from them.

And have you been able to find the line item(s) in the Budget that shows the debt service payment(s)?

Yes, you can find it listed as Function 900 in Table 3.2 of the Historical Tables. Following is an excerpt from page 72:

Table 3.2—OUTLAYS BY FUNCTION AND SUBFUNCTION (millions of dollars)

Function and Subfunction                             2005      2006
-------------------------------------------------  --------  --------
900 Net interest:                                
  901 Interest on Treasury debt securities (gross)  352,345   405,866
  902 Interest received by on-budget trust funds    –69,153   –71,574
  903 Interest received by off-budget trust funds   –91,836   –97,722
  908 Other interest ...........................     –3,945    –7,306
  909 Other investment income ..................     –3,425    –2,661
                                                   --------  --------
  Total, Net interest ..........................    183,986   226,603
                                                   --------  --------
    (On-budget) ................................   (275,822) (324,325)
    (Off-budget) ...............................   (–91,836) (–97,722)

Source: Budget of the United States Government, FY 2008, Historical Tables,
        tables 3.1 and 10.1

As can be seen, it lists the "Net interest" for 2006 to have been $226.6 billion. However, note that this equals the gross interest on Treasury debt securities (#901), minus the interest paid to the trust funds (#902 and #903), minus a small amount of other interest and investment income (#908 and #909). Hence, as I mentioned in my prior message, they are not counting interest paid to the trust funds. By the way, "on-budget trust funds" refer to just the Social Security trust fund and "off-budget trust funds" refer to all other trust funds.