Just The Facts About National Debt

The U.S. Treasury manages the U.S. debt through its Bureau of the Public Debt. The Bureau has broken out the debt into two main categories: Intragovernmental Holdings, at $5 trillion, and Debt Held by the Public, at $12 trillion (as of October 24, 2013).

Let’s look a little deeper into who we owe.

Intragovernmental Holdings – Approximately $5 Trillion of the Federal debt is held by some 230 government agencies. The largest of which is the Social Security Trust Fund which is owed $2.8 Trillion or 16 percent of the total U.S. debt. What this means is that taxpayers provided the funds necessary to fund all of these agencies including Social Security and these agencies loaned the money to our government and they spent it. All of it. This does not include more than $1.4 Trillion of the total load provided by the Federal Reserve which Treasury classifies as Public Debt.

Debt Held by the Public – The other $12 Trillion of U.S. debt is held by Foreign governments, investors, banks, mutual funds, pension funds, and treasury notes. Approximately one-fifth is held by other governmental entities, like the Federal Reserve and state and local governments. China for example is owed $1.3 Trillion or 8 percent of the total debt and Japan is owed $1.1 Trillion. Compare that to the Federal reserve who is owed $1.4 trillion. They loaned money that was printed out of thin air.

The bottom line here is that taxpayer’s  paid their taxes. The various agencies were funded from those taxpayer dollars. So much so that the agencies had the resources remaining that enabled them to loan the money to the government so they could spend more. Now that nearly all of the agencies are tapped out and facing budget cuts and the Public has lost confidence, there is nowhere else for them to borrow. That is where the Federal  Reserve comes in and prints money to buy U.S. Treasuries or debt.

We have to recognize that the vast majority of the National Debt is owed to U.S. federal government agencies and private U.S. investors. Again, other than the Federal Reserve, the agency funds which are provided to the government in the form of debt were paid or provided by taxpayers once and will now have to be paid again in some way.  The government borrowed money you already paid in taxes and now it is in the position that they will need taxpayers to pay for all of that again.  The media and others would have you believe that China and other foreign entities own America. Nothing could be further from the truth. The two largest foreign holders of debt, China and Japan only represent about 15% of the total debt load.

So, if the government defaults, it’s not foreign governments that stand to lose the most. It’s you and me baby. Taxpayer’s are on the hook for all of this and why we keep electing the idiots that put us in this position is crazy.  We have to vote for new people to breakdown the power structure. Vote NEW!