The % of the national debt held by the feds averaged over 10% during Reagan's two terms and it's averaged less than 9% since Jan. '09. Of course this info would never make a difference in a political argument, this is just useful for those of us interested in knowing what's going on.
Whoa there!
I don’t have the inputs to the chart. But is seems that the feddebtyheldbybanks to the grossfeddebt ratio peaked during the Nixon years, then during the Carter years through the Reagan years were on a downward slope, bottomed out during Bush 1, began increasing under Clinton and continued increasing under Bush 2, then DRAMATICALLY crashed during Bush 2 and is now DRAMATICALLY increasing under Obama.
Now, those two DRAMATICALLY(ies) seem unhealthy and should be something we need to be concerned about.