What’s the difference between the federal deficit and the federal debt?
The federal deficit is the amount the federal government goes in the red during each fiscal year (October 1 through September 30). This fiscal year it is expected to be around $407,000,000,000 (that’s $407 billion).
The federal debt is the total amount from all the deficits (and surpluses, such as FY 2000) over the years. It gets higher most years because the deficit is greater than the amount of debt that is paid off during the year. The debt at present is about $9,650,000,000,000 (that’s $9.65 trillion).
To whom is the debt owed?
About half is owed to the government itself. The Social Security Trust Funds, for example, hold about $2.24 trillion (23%) of the federal debt.
About a quarter of the federal debt is owed to foreign governments and institutions, foremost Britain ($280B), Japan ($584B) and China ($504B). And we owe Ecuador, Venezuela, Indonesia, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Gabon, Libya, and Nigeria about $170B combined. (Guess where they got that money to invest in our Treasury securities.)
The remaining quarter is owed to the American public through mutual funds, pension funds, banks, insurance companies, etc., in the form of treasury securities — treasury bills, bonds, notes. If you are in a money market mutual fund or have savings bonds, you are carrying part of the federal debt.
Interest paid all those creditors this fiscal year is about $455 billion.