U.S. National Debt Surpasses $15,000,000,000,000

Thu, Nov. 17 2011
By Napp Nazworth

Two days before the U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote on a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution, and one week before the “supercommittee” is supposed to propose a bill to reduce future deficits by at least $1.2 trillion, the national debt passed the $15 trillion mark.

In addition to the over $15 trillion in current debt, the federal government has over $116 trillion in unfunded liabilities, according to USDebtClock.org. Unfunded liabilities are obligations that the federal government has committed to paying, but will not have the revenue to pay for. They are Social Security, Medicare and the Medicare prescription drug benefit, which are funded through payroll taxes.

The U.S. has over 312,000,000 people and over 112,000,000 taxpayers. This means the total debt per taxpayer is over $133,000 and total liability per taxpayer is over $1 million. the rest