Americans understand personal debt all too well. There are whole industries to help people get out of debt, one even suggests freezing credit cards in ice to delay overspending.
The federal government and D.C. politicians talk about debt. But the last three presidents combined, along with the current president and a lot of help from Congress, have created record-breaking levels of national debt. Yet they are not cutting up their credit cards and they keep voting themselves higher spending limits.
The “national debt” is how much Uncle Sam has borrowed and is supposed to pay back to its creditors, be they private citizens, institutions, foreign governments (publicly held debt), or even itself (intergovernmental debt). National debt is often framed as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP).
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