Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry Message Board

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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry

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To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (931)	2/5/2004 9:51:17 PM
From: CalculatedRisk	Read Replies (1) of 81568

First, let me say ... could everyone calm down? If you bookmark my profile, it will show ~1400 posts; I just haven't posted for some time. Back to the deficit: As usual statistics can be manipulated. There is a difference between the "Public Debt" and the "National Debt". The difference is called "Intragovernmental Holdings". This is the money that is owed to the Social Security Trust Fund (and other trust funds). Right now Social Security is running a surplus of about $160 Billion per year (and growing), and this money is loaned to the General Fund and spent. If someone says the deficit was $500 Billion that was probably just the "Public Debt", the actual deficit would be approximately $160 Billion higher. You have to be careful about various off-budget spending. Once again, the US Treasury site is the best to use: publicdebt.treas.gov BTW, there are reasons that only the Public Debt is important when calculating US leverage. But the total debt is also important when trying to understand the impact of debt over the next decade.

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