QuoteThe U.S. national debt is nearly $39 trillion. One of the country's top fiscal economists says the real number is closer to $100 trillion — and that Washington's own accounting rules are designed to hide it. (As this went to press, the national debt clock stood at $38.92 trillion, per Treasury data (https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/national-debt/).)
According to Kent Smetters (https://bepp.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/smetters/), faculty director of the Penn Wharton Budget Model (https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/) and one of the country's most respected fiscal economists, that $39 trillion number is a polite fiction. The real tab, he argues, is closer to $100 trillion.
It has to do with the accounting distinction between explicit obligations — legally binding debts the government must repay — and implicit "pay-as-you-go" obligations — expected future spending commitments that carry moral or political, but not legal, force. "What we call implicit obligations are twice the size of explicit obligations," Smetters told Fortune in a recent interview, referring to the unfunded liabilities buried inside programs like Social Security and Medicare.
Link: https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/the-worlds-111-trillion-in-government-debt.387592/post-6240958 (https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/the-worlds-111-trillion-in-government-debt.387592/post-6240958)