The total debt obligation of the United States now exceeds 46 TRILLION DOLLARS.

isn't that a bit high??

I did some looking into this. Here's what I've found out so far. I might look into it some more.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/053003A.shtml

Editor's Note | Many financial experts have warned that the massive budget deficits described in the article below will bankrupt this country for the next 25 years. One must also ponder whether the drafting of this report was the main reason Paul O'Neill was removed as Treasury Secretary. - wrp

Economy
White House Shelved 44 Trillion Deficit Report?
By Peronet Despeignes of the Financial Times
Thursday 29 May 2003

Study commissioned by O'Neill sees $44 trillion in red ink

The Bush administration has shelved a report commissioned by the Treasury that shows the U.S. currently faces a future of chronic federal budget deficits totaling at least $44 trillion in current U.S. dollars.

The study, the most comprehensive assessment of how the U.S. government is at risk of being overwhelmed by the “baby boom” generation’s future healthcare and retirement costs, was commissioned by then-Treasury secretary Paul O’Neill.

But the Bush administration chose to keep the findings out of the annual budget report for fiscal year 2004, published in February, as the White House campaigned for a tax-cut package that critics claim will expand future deficits.

The study asserts that sharp tax increases, massive spending cuts or a painful mix of both are unavoidable if the U.S. is to meet benefit promises to future generations. It estimates that closing the gap would require the equivalent of an immediate and permanent 66 percent across-the-board income tax increase.

The study was being circulated as an independent working paper among Washington think-tanks as President George W. Bush on Wednesday signed into law a 10-year, $350 billion tax-cut package he welcomed as a victory for hard-working Americans and the economy.

The analysis was spearheaded by Kent Smetters, then-Treasury deputy assistant secretary for economic policy, and Jagdessh Gokhale, then a consultant to the Treasury. Mr. Gokhale, now an economist for the Cleveland Federal Reserve, said: “When we were conducting the study, my impression was that it was slated to appear [in the Budget]. At some point, the momentum builds and you think everything is a go, and then the decision came down that we weren’t part of the prospective budget.”

Mr. O’Neill, who was fired last December, refused to comment.

The study’s analysis of future deficits dwarfs previous estimates of the financial challenge facing Washington. It is roughly equivalent to 10 times the publicly held national debt, four years of U.S. economic output or more than 94 percent of all U.S. household assets. Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve chairman, last week bemoaned what he called Washington’s “deafening” silence about the future crunch.

President Bush signed into law a $350 billion tax-cut package on Wednesday saying:‘ ‘We can say loud and clear to the American people: You got more of your own money to spend so that this economy can get a good wind behind it.”

The estimates reflect the extent to which the annual deficit, the national debt and other widely reported, backward-looking data are becoming archaic and misleading as measures of the government’s solvency. Mr. Smetters, now a University of Pennsylvania finance professor, said tax cuts were only a fraction of the imbalance, and that the bigger problem “is the whole [budget] language we’re using.”

Laurence Kotlikoff, an expert on long-term budget accounting, alleged in a recent Boston Globe editorial that the Bush administration suppressed the research to ease passage of the tax-cut plan.

An administration official said the study was designed as a thought-piece for internal discussion — one among many left every year on the cutting-room floor — and noted the budget’s extensive discussion of projected, 75-year Social Security and Medicare shortfalls.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Here's a bit from a press briefing by Ari Fleischer where he says the report is isn't true.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030529-4.html

............Q Can you clarify -- there's a report out of the Financial Times out of London that says -- the Treasury Department, that former Secretary O'Neill had commissioned a report to evaluate the federal deficit, they came up with a figure of $44 trillion, and that that report was shelved in the budget of 2004. Is that accurate?

MR. FLEISCHER: Yes, that's an erroneous report. There's nobody at Treasury who was involved in this. I think there may have been some retired people, people who left Treasury, who had some thoughts. But we agree with their thoughts. If you take a look at President Bush's own budget, you'll find in the budget President Bush submitted to the Congress, the President warned about these long-term structural deficits -- it was a chapter called, "The Real Fiscal Danger" -- on page 31 of the President's own budget where he warned that Social Security and Medicare and the nation's entitlement programs are creating a tremendous burden of debt on the next generation of Americans, which is why entitlement reform is so necessary.

This is why the President wants to create a system of social security based on personal accounts on a voluntary basis, to relieve that crushing debt. There is no question that Social Security and Medicare and the nation's entitlement programs are going to present next generations with a crushing debt burden, unless policymakers work seriously to reform those programs.

Q So just to be clear, the Treasury Department did not commission that study?

MR. FLEISCHER: You can talk to Treasury about it, but my understanding is there is nothing like this underway at Treasury, and nobody working at Treasury has been working on this. There may have been some people in a private capacity outside of the Treasury Department who worked on various projects, but those are not federal employees............

A billion is really a Bi-Million ie million 6 x 0s, Bi-Million 2 x 6 0s = 12 0s

A trillion likewise, Tri-Million 18 x 0s

But the yanks bless their cotton little socks, couldn't cope with that so we have the Billion 9 x 0s and Trillion 12 x 0s. Why did they have to confuse things.

the 44 trillion was in "current us dollars" in the value of that has gone done alot so it is probably about three times that with the drop of the dollar and sepending in iraq

Do Not, Repeat, DO NOT Put all the Blame on President George W. Bush. He is only one(1) person. As the President, He is battling with 535 members of Congress., whom writes the bills and spends the money.

Take a Darn Good Look at who's been The House of Reps or the US Senate, their positions, and how long they have been in there.

In the quest of Honesty, lets be honest, and put a way all the B.S.

Sad Thing is, is that we, the American People, always vote the same idiots in there year after year, decades after decades., Never seen a ""POOR"" Politican yet, has anyone else seen a ""Poor""politican yet.? I doubt it.

Used to have a saying., screw me once shame on you, screw me twice, shame on me !!!!

Now the national debt is over $10 trillion. It's become so large that today a dollar sign was removed from the National Debt Clock to make room for another digit. Unbelievable!

WHAT EVER IT IS...PEOPLE OF AMERICA LET ME SAY THIS...ECONOMY IS RAN BY CONSUMERS..PRICES HAVE GONE OUT OF CONTROL..OIL, GASOLINE, FOOD, CLOTHING, HOUSING, ETC.. THIS RECESION IS LIKE A RESET BUTTON FOR EVERYBODY.. THE PEOPLE HAVE PRESSED THIS BUTTON..WHY?.. BECAUSE WE ARE TIRED OF CERTAIN PEOPLE GETTING RICH OUT OF HARD WORKING PEOPLE THAT GET UP EARLY EVERY DAY TO GO TO WORK...WHILE OUR FAMILIES ARE ALONE SURROUNDED BY A BUNCH OF CROOKS AND BAD INFLUENCE FOR OUR KIDS THAT LIVE IN ALL OF OUR NEIGHBORHOODS IN ALL LEVELS...IT´S FUNNY HOW GREAT MINDS THAT RAN THIS COUNTRY IN THE PAST HAVE DESAPPEARED...WHAT HAVE HAPPEN TO WHITE CLEAN CUT AMERICA?..NOW WE HAVE A BLACK CANDIDATE RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT.WHATS THAT ABOUT? NOT EVEN HIS OWN RACE ACCEPT THIS CANDIDATE..STOP PRETENDING OTHER KINDS WILL RESCUE OUR COUNTRY..NO SUCH THING..WHAT´S NEXT A CHINESE OR ARABIAN CANDITATE?...WE ARE SUPPOST TO BE THE CREAM OF THE CROP OF ALL COUNTRIES..WHAT TYPE OF RESPECT THEN WE ARE GOING TO HAVE AMONG OTHERS...WE ARE BEING RAN BY IDIOTS, NO EXPERIENCE, NO EDUCATION AND WHATS WORSE DRUG ADDICTS THAT SETTLE FOR NUDY BARS, CADILLACS AND GO FOR THE EASIEST WAY TO GET OUT OF THINGS...AMERICANS IS TIME TO GET UP AND SHOUT ¨WE WANT THE REAL AMERICA¨..IMIGRANTS ARE WELCOME WELLED DOCUMENTED WITH BACKGROUNDS CHECKED AND ONLY IF THEY ARE HAND PICKED BY GOD ARE ALLOWED TO COME IN AND WORK HARD FOR THEIR FAMILIES, BUT THEY NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT AMERICA IS RAN ONLY BY A CERTAIN KIND OF PEOPLE..THEY CAN JUST SIT, WATCH AND LISTEN BUT CANNOT SHARE THEIR IDEAS, LANGUAGES OR TRY TO CHANGE THE SISTEM...ONLY REAL AMERICANS KNOW HOW IT HURTS TO SEE THIS COUNTRY GO TO HELL...PRICES NEED TO GO DOWN...IMMIGRATION NEEDS TO BE REGULATED....HOUSING PRICES NEED TO DECREASE BY 50-65% SO LITTLE JOHNNY COULD HAVE A ROOM TO DREAM IN AND BECOME A SUCCESS JUST LIKE BILL GATES...WHAT HAPPEN TO TV, MUSIC, MOVIES...IT´S ALL GARBAGE DESTROYING OUR MINDS..PEOPLE ARE TIRED, CANT AFFORD THE GOOD o´DAYS THAT OUR PAST GOVERNORS DREAMED FOR US NOW..THATS WHY WE HAVE ACCEPTED AN ENVIRONMENT WHERE DIVORCE, CHILD SUPPORT, DRUG ABUSE, LOW INCOME, LOW SELF STEEM, AND NOT GIVING A DAMN ABOUT OUR COUNTRY RULES AND THATS IN EVERY NEIGHBORHOOD ACROSS OUR COUNTRY..I SUGGEST EVERYBODY THINK TWICE ABOUT OUR COUNTRY AND REALLY GET BACK ON THEIR FEET OTHER WISE ITS WORTHLESS ALL THE EFFORTS SINCE DAY ONE THAT OUR CREATORS MADE FOR US NOW, THE DREAM LAND...GOD IS WATCHING US, HE KNOWS OUR HEARTS BUT CANNOT ACCEPT THE FACT THAT WE AS LEADERS HAVE FAILED...WAKE UP..MOVE ON...AND LETS GET BACK ON OUR FEET...NO MORE LOANS TO PEOPLE THAT CAN AFFORD ONE..NO MORE HELP TO OTHER COUNTRIES...NO MORE ALLOWING OTHER MINDS TO COME IN AND DESTROY OUR BEAUTIFUL LAND...AMERICA WASN´T ABOUT BEING A SYMBOL FOR SEX, DRUGS, AND VIOLANCE..IT WAS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY, PROGRESS, DICOVERY, FINANCIAL FREEDOM AND A NICE HOME WHERE YOU LAID YOUR HEAD WITH OUT ANY PROBLEM WHATS SO EVER..STOP BUYING INFECTED AND CONTAMINATED PRODUCTS FROM OVER SEAS..WE NEED TO BRING BACK PRODUCTS THAT ARE LABELED ¨MADE IN THE USA¨..WELL MONEY IS DEBT, DEBT IS MONEY BUT WHO´S FAULT IS IT REALLY?..I SIT AND I AWAIT FOR MY CHANCE BUT YOU WONT HEAR FROM ME TILL 20 YEAR FROM NOW..¨GOD BLESS AMERICA¨ BETTER KNOWN AS THE HOME OF THE FORNICATORS AND THIEVES...GEORGE WASHINGTON!!!

Not sure what you mean by moderate. My language is never foul to the mildest of people, might be a bit sharp though. I can't remember what I said but it was along the lines of, if you had not have messed with the Billion/Trillion thing then your debt would not seem so much.

I am not a geek so what you mean by HTML is a mystery to me.

the status of our economy---as of 10/25/08----just a guess by my accounts shows a debit totaling about 98 trillion US dollars-----------there is a possibility perhaps that this sum total does not exist in actual US currency---the combined debits--national trade deficit & collapse of our Banking system ---well this seems that the impossible has happened----whats next in store ------help!---in god we trust---regulate what we make---thankyou a little guy.

ok first, poor persons dont pay taxes, you must make around 50k or higher before you pay income tax. Now Social Security ( pay bums ) and medicare ( also paying bums ) everyone making more than 600 dollars pays that. You have 2 classes of rich. The rich then the super rich. The rich ( doctors, small business owners ) get penalized the most out of all classes. The Super- rich ( ceo of Walmart or Microsoft ) They do not nearly pay as much in % in taxes as the middle class. Middle class can be from 20k to 300k depending on where you live. The more socialized the US becomes, the more it will be like Europe. An economy that basically is dull, and were the real typical European barely makes it by, unlike hollywood that paints everyone cruising in their overrated brand loving bmw.

A trillion dollar bailout!

We could have given all 305,222,640 million citizens of the United States a million dollars each and still not spent as much as our representatives did in the recent bailout of wall street!

The United States needs to learn that it can't continue on the path it is on and still call it a democracy.

Obama and his new team have their work cut out for them.

Bailouts,

Over a trillion dollars and climbing and no end in sight.

This amount has aleady been given to the Wall Street wealthy - it will disappear and they will come back for more. And likely no one will ever see it again. The bail out as proposed and executed so far certainly will have a marginal effect on you or me.
An alternative would be to give 10,000 dollars to each bonafide US family (with stings attached) then the amount of money spent would be $10,000 to ~$100,000,000 needy families.
If we do the math $10,000 x $100,000,000 = ~one trillion dollars and change (twelve zeros). The govt can always print money. You and I cannot.
The Obama proposal is $1,000 for families. That will not solve the economic issues. Ten thousand dollars per family might explode the economy, stop many foreclosures and kick start the ailing economy.
Isn't that better than handing trillions to Wall Street wealty? After all Clinton by Executive Order ordered them in 1996 to provide subprime loans to individuals who banks knew would be unable to pay it back, and would default. But if they did not provide the loans they disobeyed a Clinton executive order.

it took the usa 240 years to accumulate 9 trillion, however in the last 18 months an additional 8 trillion has been added and before the bailout is complete another 3-4 will be added

IF your take home pay after taxes was $10,000 an hour
AND you worked 8 hours a day, 50 weeks a year (2 weeks vacation)

You would have to work 50,000 years to earn one trillion dollars

A dollar bill is 6.14 inches long, so a trillion of them (a thousand thousand million for purists.) is almost 97 million miles long. That's a trip from the Sun to the Earth with enough left over to go from Earth to the Moon and back 8 times, and then drive from NYC to LA and back 14 times. And then drive to Pittsburgh PA.

A US One Dollar bill weighs just about 1 gram. A trillion grams is the same as 1,102,311 tons, (American tons of 2000 lbs) which is the displacement weight of about 11 quite large modern ocean liners or aircraft carriers.

Whatever the amount, it will never be paid. Where will those on the dole get their money from when the US gets foreclosed on?

Check out the peterson foundation at http://www.pgpf.org/
The true obligations of the government exceeds 56 trillion when you add in social security and medicare obligations.

When will the general Public get some of that money?

The general public (We The People) will get some of that money (i.e. confiscated wealth that the rich have defrauded the poor out of wrongfully, by changing the Law - not that the paper money its self is worth anything) just as soon as they return to keeping perfectly fair unbiased and Just Law of God in the Bible (which forbids usury or lending at interest) and ENFORCE it!

http://100777.com/plan

The ONLY solution is to enforce The Plan against the traitorous Banking-Gangster N.W.O. Zion-Nazi mass-murder, inside-job perpetrators of OKC, 911, Bali, 7/7/2005 and the phoney War on Terror and Freedom, and reinstate God's Perfect Laws of Liberty and bring the perpetrators to Justice.

Time is running out