On the morning of Jan. 19, the American national debt stood at $12,276,477,277,649.25, according to the US Treasury. Call it $12 trillion, close to a year's worth of national economic output. Every US citizen-man, woman, and child-owed an average of $39,900 to the nation's creditors.rnBy the time you read this, the figure will be higher, since the debt grows by $4 billion per day. In fact. US indebtedness, which was $5.7 trillion in 2000, is expected to hit a towering $21 trillion in this decade.
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