Lonestar1

U.S. Domestic Debt: What Can Be Expanded, What Must Be Reduced?

The $51 trillion is definitely misleading. The net debt is definitely lower. The data is from Federal Reserve Bank Statistical Releases.

It simply adds all the debts owed by all parties. As such, as far as the net debt is concerned, some items are accounted twice.

One obvious example:
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Approximately 1/3 of the mortgage loans are held by Freddie & Fannie. These agencies in turn finance the purchase of these assets by selling agency bonds. In this way, this 1/3 mortgages are accounted twice in the total.
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There are several other items.