China Owns US Debt, but How Much?
By mid-2017, the total amount of official debt owed by the federal, state and local governments was more than $19.4 trillion. That figure was $22 trillion, as of Feb. 17, 2019. Some experts add more than $120 trillion in unfunded future liabilities on the federal government balance sheet.
Of the $22 trillion in government debts, more than $5 trillion (a little less than one-third) is actually owned by the federal government in trust funds. These are accounts dedicated to Social Security, Medicare and other entitlements. In other words, the government wrote itself a really big IOU and bankrupted one account to finance another activity. IOUs are formed and financed through joint efforts of the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve.
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