The United States public debt is the outstanding amount owed by the federal government of the
United States from the issue of securities by the
Treasury and other federal government agencies.
US public debt consists of two components:
Debt held by the public includes
Treasury securities held by investors outside the federal government, including that held by individuals, corporations, the
Federal Reserve System and foreign, state and local governments.
Debt held by government accounts or intragovernmental debt includes non-marketable Treasury securities held in accounts administered by the federal government that are owed to program beneficiaries, such as the
Social Security Trust Fund. Debt held by government accounts represents the cumulative surpluses, including interest earnings, of these accounts that have been invested in Treasury securities.
Public debt increases or decreases as a result of the annual unified budget deficit or surplus. The federal government budget deficit or surplus is the
difference between government receipts and spending, ignoring intra-governmental transfers. However, some spending that is excluded from the deficit (supplemental appropriations) also adds to the debt.
Historically, the US public debt as a share of
GDP increased during wars and recessions, and subsequently declined. For example, debt held by the public as a share of GDP peaked just after
World War II (113% of GDP in
1945), but then fell over the following 30 years. In recent decades, however, large budget deficits and the resulting increases in debt have led to concern about the long-term sustainability of the federal government's fiscal policies.
On April 2,
2013, debt held by the public was approximately $11.959 trillion or about 75% of GDP.
Intragovernmental holdings stood at $4.846 trillion, giving a combined total public debt of $16.805 trillion.
As of January 2013, $
5.6 trillion or approximately 47% of the debt held by the public was owned by foreign investors, the largest of which were the
People's Republic of China and
Japan at just over $
1.1 trillion each.
The
CBO has summarized the cause of change between its
January 2001 estimate of a $5.6 trillion cumulative surplus between
2002 and
2011 and the actual $
6.1 trillion cumulative deficit that occurred, an unfavorable "turnaround" or debt increase of $11.7 trillion. Tax cuts and slower-than-expected growth reduced revenues by $6.1 trillion and spending was $5.6 trillion higher. Of this total, the CBO attributes 72% to legislated tax cuts and spending increases and 27% to economic and technical factors. Of the latter, 56% occurred from 2009 to 2011.
The difference between the projected and actual debt in 2011 can be largely attributed to:
$
3.5 trillion -- Economic changes (including lower than expected tax revenues and higher safety net spending due to recession)
$1.6 trillion --
Bush Tax Cuts (
EGTRRA and
JGTRRA), primarily tax cuts but also some smaller spending increases
$1.5 trillion -- Increased defense baseline budget and non-defense discretionary spending under both the
Bush and
Obama administrations
$1.4 trillion --
Wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq
$1.4 trillion -- Incremental interest due to higher debt balances
$
0.9 trillion -- Stimulus and tax cuts since 2008 (
Economic Stimulus Act of 2008,
ARRA and Tax Act of
2010)
Several other sources have used CBO data to summarize the results in various ways.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Us_debt
- published: 26 Aug 2013
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