National Debt Clock in New York Runs Out of Digits

In New York, the national debt clock shows the running total of the amount of money the United States owes. The amount shown on the national debt clock is owed by the country and will be the responsibility of the American taxpayer. Think of it as the country's credit card bill. Every time you hear about deficit spending, that's increasing the amount on the national debt clock. So when Dick Cheney says "the deficit doesn't matter, Ronald Reagan proved that." He is advocating ignoring the rising credit card bill that the United States is racking up as shown on this national debt clock.

How Much of the Number shown on the National Debt Clock Belongs to You?

As consumers, we all know what happens if we run up our credit card bills. Pretty soon the amount of interest we have to pay each month begins to cripple our household budget. We end up spending so much money just to cover the minimum monthly payments that it seems like we'll never get ahead. According to zfacts.com, right now, the national debt clock stands at $10,229,613,826,553.72. That's a lot of numbers and that's a lot of debt. Over $10.2 trillion in debt owed by this country. Every man woman and child who is a citizen of this country owns more than $33,000 of the very big number shown on the national debt clock. For a family of 3 that's just about $100,000 of debt. Even with all the taxes we're paying the number on the national debt clock increases by about $3.24 billion every day.

Why is the National Debt Clock Racing so Fast?

After watching the deficit shrink under Bill Clinton, we've seen the number on the national debt clock grow from 5.7 Trillion to $10.2 Trillion from 2001 to 2008. The following list is excerpted from zfacts.com and shows the three primary reasons for this massive increase during this time.

1. Lowered taxes on the rich (by far the biggest factor)

2. The cost of the Iraq invasion and continued occupation

3. Loosened controls on Wall Street

To Whom is the National Debt Owed?