In the USA, anxiety about US Federal Debt, the National Debt, has a long history. The almost phobic anxiety about National Debt is surprising given the practical facts that long term Government debt costs less and is less of a burden on persons and households (funded by direct and indirect taxation) than private sector debt that has to be paid off over much shorter periods via bank interest and prices. What is the scale involved? The USA has a resident population of 301 millions. As of November 19, 2008, the total U.S. Federal debt was $10.6 trillion = about $35,200 per capita (that is, per U.S. resident). The October 3rd, 2008 bailout bill (H.R.1424), section 122, raised the U.S. debt ceiling from $10 trillion to $11.3 trillion, which will increase by at least another $1 trillion in 2009.
But, $5 trillions is debt internal to Government = between Government accounts. This leaves roughly $6.3 trillion owed externally to Government (over many years) = £20,900 per USA resident or about $55,000 per household. Yet, non-Government private sector debt is three times this at about $37 trillion (owing by business and households) = $122,900 per person, or $323,200 per household. All these debts have offsetting wealth holdings and incomes, and the debts will not be a burden on all equally. In 2007, the public debt was 36.9% of GDP, with a total debt of 65.5% of GDP. As a % ratio to GDP US Federal debt is only the 27th largest. Why should this be a worry? 
Some commentators seek stoke the fears of taxpayers by adding in unfunded Government debts looking forward decades e.g. Medicaid, Social Security, Medicare, veterans' pensions, and similar obligations. By the same token, one might as well add to corporate debt the employmee benefits and medical insurance paid by private sector employers going forward decades. This is not sensible thinking. The Government's so-called unfunded debts are current services and transfers paid out of each year's Government tax revenues (about 25% of which is earned annually from tax pplied to the Government's own spending). If these expenditures are added in to National Debt, the gross figure rises to a total of $59.1 trillion, or $516,348 per current household. The fashion for adding to general paranoia about long term debt, as if it is all current, began with the US Congressional Budget Office in the 1990s (Republican dominated during the Clinton Presidency) when in order to politically undermine trust in a Democratic Administration that was balancing the budget and generating a surplus, the CBO produced data about long term pensions suggesting that these would totally overwhelm the Federal budget by mid-century. They figured the numbers as if pensioners live on anotheplanaet and do not spend in the domestic economy! In fact the cost of supporting poor pensioners is financed by taxation of rich pensioners, is sustainable and affordable. The argument carried forward, however, to pension and insurance funds with the insistence that they should be funded sufficiently to cover all known future obligations, otherwise their solvency would be in doubt. This is despite the fact that pension and insurance funds pay claims mainly out of current premiums (keeping investment funds most intact as reserves out of which supplemental dividend and interest earnings are available). Fact is that both private sector and public sector pensions, other claims and benefits are paid mainly out of current income just as how households pay their mortgages, except when they sell one house profitably in order to buy a cheaper one.
