U.S. federal debt added up to $908 billion in 1980, but today, nearly 40 years later, the number comes in around $22 trillion. And then as the perpetually alarmed regularly remind us (in The Hill yesterday, economist Bert Ely warned readers in yet another column that "our day of fiscal reckoning nears"....) the previous number doesn't come close to tallying the gargantuan sums the federal government owes when unfunded future liabilities are factored in.
That the amount owed by U.S. taxpayers has soared in modern times would, in a static world, correlate with a huge increase in borrowing costs for the U.S. Treasury. Wouldn't it?
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