United States Consolidated Liabilities

The pro-government spending crowd wants to minimize the amount of debt shown and focuses on debt held by the public to say that the national debt is only about $8 trillion. The anti-government crowd includes speculative unfunded liabilities to say that the national debt is over $100 trillion.

I think the true figure is somewhere in between and so I present my calculation of the Consolidated Liabilities. This shows my biases, so your calculation may be different. I want to include all the debt that the US government is liable for. I arbitrarily include unfunded liabilities for Social Security, but exclude any amounts for Medicare, simply because I think Medicare is much more likely to be revised.

I also include any liabilities of the Federal Reserve (less treasury deposits). This is because Federal Reserve Notes and bank deposits with the Fed are assumed to be backed by the full faith and credit of the US. Any off-balance sheet bailouts by the Fed will show up here.

Calculation of the US Consolidated Liabilities as of 9/30/2009 (in billions)

Amount Category
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11,910 National Debt
5,284 Federal Pensions (1)
5,300 Soc. Sec. unfunded (2)
1,051 Federal Reserve liabilities (3)
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23,545 Total (4,5)
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Notes:
(1) source: http://www.gao.gov/financial/fy2009/09stmt.pdf

(2) source: http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/2009/II_highlights.html. This is called "the present value of the open group unfunded obligation for OASDI over the 75-year period" and is as of January 1, 2009.

(3) source: http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/20091001/. The number comes from $2.093 trillion in liabilities, less $273B of US deposits, less $769B of US treasury security assets. The treasury securities owned by the Fed should perhaps be subtracted from the National Debt total instead, but this is the cleanest way of calculating it without double counting.

(4) This total excludes any amount for housing securities or housing related debt. The total of this is about $7,784 billion, consisting of the following: Fannie Mae liabilities, $905B; Freddie Mac liabilities, $856B; government-financed mortgages, $813B; government-backed mortgage pools, $5,300B. Sources: http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/Freddie_Mac_%28FRE%29/Data/Balance_Sheet. http://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/releases/mortoutstand/mortoutstand20091231.htm.

(5) As noted, this excludes any potential liabilities for Medicare, which could be in excess of $100 trillion. There are additional liabilities that could be included such as FDIC guarantees, student loan guarantees, PBGC, environmental liabilities, etc., but these total less than $1 trillion.

Conclusion: I think this will be a useful calculation, and should be updated annually. So long as the total increases by 10% or less annually, there should be no cause for concern.

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Update. The 9/30/2007 numbers are:
9,008 National Debt
4,769 Federal Pensions (1)
4,700 Soc. Sec. unfunded (2)
52 Federal Reserve liabilities (3)
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18,529 Total
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(1) http://www.gao.gov/financial/fy2008/08stmt.pdf
(2) From: http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/TR07/II_project.html#wp105057
(3) From http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/20071004/. Total Fed liabilities of $838B, less treasury deposits of $6B, less $780B of treasury securities.

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The 9/30/2008 numbers for comparison are as follows:
10,025 National Debt
5,319 Federal Pensions
4,400 Soc. Sec. unfunded
630 Federal Reserve liabilities (1)
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20,374 Total
=====

(1) From http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/20081002/. Total Fed liabilities of $1,457B, less treasury deposits of $350B, less $477B of treasury securities.

So 2008 increased by $1,845B or 10.0% and 2009 increased by $3,171B, or 15.6%.

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The 6/17/2010 numbers for comparison:
13,039 National Debt
5,284 Federal Pensions
5,300 Soc. Sec. unfunded
1,229 Federal Reserve liabilities (1)
-------
24,852 Total
=====

(1) From http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/Current/. Total Fed liabilities of $2,292B, less treasury deposits of $286B, less $777B of treasury securities.

So, YTD the total has increased $1,307B or 5.6%.