A teenager asks: Who'll pay the national debt?

John W. Schoen Senior producer • Profile • E-mail

This week a 13-year-old reader from Topeka wants to know: What is the government going to do about paying down the gigantic national debt? We wish we had a better answer. Another asks: What happens if investors stop buying all our debt?

I'm really worried about the national debt. Our country owes over $8 trillion. Trillion! I live in Topeka, Kan., and although I'm just 13 years old, I know that I'm going to be part of the millions of people who are going to be paying for this debt (if we ever pay it off). I want to know how the government plans to help us solve this huge problem.
- Leobardo E., Topeka, Kan.

You are quite right to be concerned, Leobardo. I wish more members of our government shared that concern. The only honest answer is: There is no plan.

You’re also right about your generation inheriting the debt that has been generated by my generation. If you haven’t already, maybe you want to sit your parents down and have a little talk about it.

As of Nov. 13, the U.S. national debt was $10,578,639,151,691.13 (that’s $10.5 trillion) and growing by about $3.8 billion every day. About $6.2 trillion of that debt is from Treasury bonds sold to a variety of investors, including foreign governments.

Another $4.3 trillion is held by our own government – mostly in the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. These funds have been collecting more than they spend, saving for the day when my generation retires and starts collecting retirement checks and needs health coverage to pay our doctor bills and buy medicine. Those savings could have been stashed in a bank account. But the Treasury needs the money to make up for the years the government spent more money than it collected in taxes. Voters like to see cuts in taxes, not in services.

Though $10 trillion looks like a big number, keep in mind that the U.S. economy is generating about $13 trillion every year, which means the debt is about 80 percent of GDP. On that basis, we’ve seen it go higher in the past; during World War II , the national debt was more than GDP.

If our government can figure out how to set taxes and spending at the same level, and the economy keeps growing, the debt will get smaller in relation to the economy. If that happens the burden on your generation won’t be so bad. The only way to do that is to raise taxes or cut services - or both. It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen any time soon.

The government isn’t alone in borrowing too much money. American consumers have borrowed $11.5 trillion in mortgages and another $2.5 trillion in credit card, car loans and other debts. Banks and Wall Street investment firms borrowed tens of trillions of dollars more to create complex investments that now are worth a lot less than everyone thought.

Now, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve are using trillions of dollars more to try to clean up the mess. As they do, the debt pile probably will grow. Some day, that will have to be paid back too.

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