Talk:National debt of the United States: Difference between revisions

US Public Debt vs US Private Debt

Something's missing here. If there's a page dedicated to "United States Public Debt", why isn't there one so titled for "United States Private debt"? If understanding the "debt ceiling" invokes this page on "United States Public Debt", why not one similarly titled and detailed called "United States PRIVATE debt"?

Understanding the economic buzz surrounding the term "debt ceiling" might be easier to grasp if there was a similarly titled page called "United States PRIVATE Debt". I know I'd like to compare and contrast the two concepts. I'd write it myself, but I don't know what I'm doing, and the person who wrote and formatted the former should also format and write the latter to better contrast the two concepts (besides, quite frankly I don't even know what balancing a checkbook means (bozo_de_niro@37.com).

Moved text

This article was quite long, so I've moved some text from here to History of the United States public debt, Political debates about the United States federal budget, and Deficit reduction in the United States. AnomieBOT should be along to fix the broken refs, but I'll check up tomorrow to make sure that they get fixed. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 01:50, 9 December 2011 (UTC) THE ARTICLE DOESN'T HAVE UP TO DATE INFO. I WANT TO KNOW THE BREAKDOWN OF HOLDERS OF US DEBT IN 2011 NOT 2008. GET THE DATA UPDATED. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.63.202.17 (talk) 22:45, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Carmen & Rogoff debt-to-GDP threshold at 90 % is gross debt NOT public debt

I emailed Carmen Reinhart about this question specifically and asked which one it is that they meant. She replied that it is gross debt, not public debt(or net debt).

Our exchange:

Hello,

I just wonder about the 90 % threshold of public debt which usually induces a GDP growth slowdown.

In the latest working paper from April this is defined as 'public debt'. Correct me if I am wrong, but the net public debt is around 68 % for the U.S.(and forecasted to rise to about mid-70s within a year or two and then stabilize).

However, America's gross debt is now over 100 %.

Which measure should be used? And can gross debt be used too for this? The term used in the working paper from April was 'public debt' - not net public debt.

I would be very happy if there was some kind of clarification on this as googling have not made me wiser!

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Yes it is gross debt, which for the US is above the 90% threshold. This is the longest time series beginning in 1790. It is central (federal government), so it does not include state debt and government sponsored enterprises, which now include the two mortgage giants best Carmen

Carmen M. Reinhart Dennis Weatherstone Senior Fellow Peterson Institute for International Economics 1750 Massachussetts Avenue, NW Washington DC 20036-1903 tel. 202-454-1325 fax. 202-659-3225 creinhart@piie.com http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~creinhar/ www.carmenreinhart.com

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Update needed?

Some of the information/graphs in this article are 3-4 years old, it seems like it could use an update. Blm (talk) 15:30, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree, all of the charts are updated as of 2010. Can anyone find or make some new charts and graphs so that people can get more up to date information? 75.161.86.228 (talk) 16:54, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Questions?

I'm not certain how to ask questions regarding the content in this thread. But I question the estimate of the Bush Tax Cuts causing a $3B budget variance, when according to Fact-Checker @ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/revisiting-the-cost-of-the-bush-tax-cuts/2011/05/09/AFxTFtbG_blog.html the 10 year cost of the tax cuts was $1.3 trillion. If we are counting the Obama extension of these cuts, which takes the Total to $2.8 trillion, then shouldn't the extension be known as the Obama tax cuts, since they occurred during his administration? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.57.18.85 (talk) 12:35, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Good question. The most relevant citation is from the CBO below. CBO estimated the causes of an $11.7 trillion "swing" for the worse in our debt position from 2001 projections to 2011 actual. They estimate the Bush tax cuts (EGTRRA and JGTRRA) at $1.5 trillion in reduced revenue from 2001-2011. EGTRRA is the single largest line item in the causes. All legislative revenue actions (including extension of the Bush tax cuts in 2010, stimulus, payroll tax cuts, etc.) added up to $2.8 trillion. The slow economy resulted in another $3.3 trillion in revenue losses, for a total revenue impact of $6.1 trillion. Increased outlays were $5.7 trillion. So according to CBO, our "revenue problem" was bigger than our "spending problem" in terms of this swing. CBO-Changes in Baseline Projections Since January 2001 Farcaster (talk) 17:38, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

CBO also estimated that extending the Bush tax cuts from 2011-2020 would add about $3.3 trillion to the debt, about $2.65 trillion in foregone tax revenue plus another $0.66 trillion for interest and debt service costs. See table 1.7 on page 24 of this: CBO-Budget and Economic Outlook Farcaster (talk) 17:38, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Just adding info here that the report says on page 26 that if the laws were extended just for married taxpayers with income below $250,000 and single taxpayers with income below $200,000—as the President has proposed—the total added would be about $2 trillion (I think that is vs. $2.65 trillion -- rounded up to 2.7 there). Also, a better url for this is http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/117xx/doc11705/08-18-update.pdf Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 02:32, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Debt and Deficit

There is no reason to mention the trade deficit without disussing any relationship the debt and the trade deficit may have. Clarifying the difference between the concepts, which may be helpful to a reader, seems like it would be outside the scope of this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.4.239.48 (talk) 18:43, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

So how much ??

Seriously, I've read this article maybe five or six times. I still don't have any bearing on how much the US federal debt actually is. Could we find a way to make a table? 1999, the debt is $X, 2000, $Y... it seems silly to me that the article on the United States Public Debt doesn't actually say how much the United States Public Debt actually is.--Paul McDonald (talk) 04:26, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Charts missing deficit data

The deficit in percent of GDP is the appropriate measurement of the change in public debt. However, there is no mention of this in the page. The statistic is also not in the charts. --Robert Wm "Ruedii" (talk) 09:10, 16 September 2012 (UTC)