That is the federal debt as of December 14, 2006. Your share is almost $30,000. You can check on it every day if you like at the Bureau of the Public Debt's The Debt to the Penny and Who Holds It. It's disappointing reading. Of course, that number is almost 50% greater than it was at the beginning of Bush's first budget (9/28/2001). Apparently Bush could not believe that St. Ronald of Reagan was wrong when he proved with his own disastrous deficits that tax cuts do not pay for themselves and that Arthur Laffer is a successful con man, but not a good economist. The real surprise is that despite the towering debt and the substantial deficit being run by the federal government, long-term bond rates are relatively low.
Yes, we do need to have fiscal discipline, particularly since Bush has been absolutely irresponsible with the budget, but the low long-term bond rates, lower than short-term borrowing at the moment, tell us that the demand in the private sector for money to borrow is weak, the economy is sputtering and that the bond market does not expect an upsurge in inflation. There is time to fix Bush's fiscal mess before it comes back to hurt us.
The problem is having the will to do it. Let's say that in the second hundred hours, the Democrats decide to set a sensible target of a balanced budget for the 2010 fiscal year: the first year that our next president will be responsible for. What policy decisions would you support to get there? What do we need to do first? What can we live with? What can we cut?