FACTOIDS: Here's different ways of looking at the national debt
May 23, 2011
While you're sipping your morning coffee, here are some unsettling facts from a Reuters story about the national debt as our country gets closer to maxing out on what it can borrow.
A sample:
President Ronald Reagan once famously said that a stack of $1,000 bills equivalent to the U.S. government's debt would be about 67 miles high.
That was 1981. Since then, the national debt has climbed to $14.3 trillion. In $1,000 bills, it would now be more than 900 miles tall.
Will we ever reach a consensus in this country about what to cut and how much? What happens when we can't borrow anymore?