US Debt $65tn---More Than 3 Times Larger Than Commonly Believed

When referencing America's dire debt burden, people usually cite the shockingly large number of about $18.5 trillion.

But that's too little ... by a factor of more than 3.

According to one Dave Walker, who was the head of the GAO (Government Accountability Office) during the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush eras, the situation is much, much worse ...

If you end up adding to that $18.5 trillion the unfunded civilian and military pensions and retiree healthcare, the additional underfunding for Social Security, the additional underfunding for Medicare, various commitments and contingencies that the federal government has, the real number is about $65 trillion rather than $18 trillion, and it’s growing automatically absent reforms.

What's going to happen when this house of cards collapses? :-O

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Need a brief economy lesson, who is American in debit to?

Default and switch to a one world currency?

We need to end pensions. Now.

At this point might as well call China East China, and America West China. Either that, or America is Chinerica or Americhina.

No one ever seems to think everything will come crashing down because as long as the printing presses run and the government has credit, all will be well. B.S.

It's just 'murica, not worth caring about.

The debt is for social programs that are underfunded or not funded at all. This is not new. The right has been saying this for decades only to be ignored.

Unfunded liabilities are not the same as debt. Unfunded liabilities amount to looking at your projected costs vs. projected revenue over X number of years, taking that sum and inexplicably adding it to your current debt number. That's stupid. Yes, it represents something that needs to be addressed by cutting costs or adding revenue to make up for the shortfall, but it is not the same as having 65 trillion dollars in debt today.

it's just imaginary shit supported by faith so as long as people remain stupid and don't pull at the strings or ask any questions about how money is created we will be ok.

if there is one resource we have in abundance it's the stupid.

Goverment debt is around 19trillion, but if you look at consumer debt, that's even larger.

Ding Ding Ding, we have a winner. And most of this metric consists of Medicare projections at current rates ignoring any type of tax increase or cost cutting measures. As most people would have guess it however, tax rates increase and decrease depending on the country's current economic climate.

U.S owes its people mostly, not China

and that's much better than owing China or other countries