Total Outstanding Debt Owed by the US Federal Government

Yesterday, I found myself wondering what the current level of debt owed by the United States government is, as well as what the history is of the United States Federal Government functioning under an outstanding debt. I very quickly found the data here, but I was unable to easily find a clear graphic representation of that information. I created the following graphs to visually represent the total outstanding US debt on an annual basis. (If you want to see something from the near past, you can see the graph I created showing the US National debt change from Ocober 2008 through April 2009.)

As of 03FEB09, the total Outstanding Debt of the United States Federal Government is $12,346,427,470,024.01. That is almost 12 and a half Trillion dollars! I have added a widget to the right-hand side of this blog to track the daily amount of debt owed.

Click each graph to see the larger, more detailed version.









As you can see, the trend is almost a reliable increase of debt every year, with recent history showing an unbelievable amount of debt owed by our government increasing by incredible margins every year.

I fear the repercussions of this terrible fiscal behavior and believe that this debt will one day become the downfall of the prosperous United States of America. I pray that our representatives will determine to reduce the size and span of our Federal Government, reduce the taxes imposed on the American people and commit to reduce the debt every year until it is entirely removed. (Yes, I am a dreamer.)