See for yourself. Based on data from Bush's White House. Why is the debt so huge? What really happened in the Reagan "revolution." Fully documented, this is the only place you'll find this story. Also see how American paid down an even greater debt—with both Republicans and Democrats helping out. New YouTube debt video of graph.

September 12, 2010.  The danger is from self-styled radical "conservatives" who ran up the debt during good times and want to pay if off in bad times. (Even more dangerous—a lot of Democrats are buying this too.) Of course, they all mean well. But the road to hell is still paved with good intentions. Close to 10 million Americans are out of work, and tea-party "patriots" want to cut spending—that means cutting jobs. ZFacts was warning about the deficit back when the economy was booming. That was the time to cut, ... more

Notes on the Debt/Saving Clocks:  $4.5 trillion of the debt is owed to trust funds like the Social Security trust fund. Employees and Employers have have contributed $2.5 trillion and loaned it to the federal government's general fund, because our income taxes cannot cover the cost of general government services -- mostly the military.

Right now Social Security has $2.5 trillion in the "bank" — the most it's ever had. It has been adjusted to keep in balance many times. The last time in 1983, it was almost completely out of money. There's no reason it cannot be adjusted again, but it would be better not to let it run so low this time.

Most of the debt held by the public is owed to Americans, getting near half is owed to other countries. By far the largest part of the debt is due to Reagan and the Bushes (based on the treasury and pro-Reagan data).

May 24, 2010.  Money flows in circles: you get paid you spend it, and the store pays someone else, who spends at another store. But what if everyone spent 90% and saved 10% in the bank? What would that do to jobs ... more >>

They like to scare you with how much we owe, but what about the flip side? How much are we owed? When you owe money you owe it to someone, and about $4 trillion is owed to foreign governments etc., but we Americans are owed about $9 trillion. Some will say "they'll never pay us." But in that case, it's us not paying us, so if we don't get paid, we don't pay.

Below you can see that $4.5 trillion is owed to gov. trust funds -- a lot of that is owed to those who will collect social security. Almost $1 trillion supports the U.S. dollar and will never need to be paid back, unless we stop using money.

Also remember that in the financial crisis the government bought about $1 trillion in mortgages and other IOUs, and although some will go bad, we now own a lot of assets that will later be sold to pay off the debt.