This is a new feature. Although the National Debt Thermometer (next article below) shows the USA’s debt-to-GDP number, in the interest of full disclosure I decided to set up this National Debt Microscope to reveal specifically how I’m calculating that ratio.
There are five important concepts on the chart below:
1. Actual GDP (green), from the BEA tables.
2. Forecasted GDP (blue), using this method.
3. Actual Debt (red), from the US Treasury website.
4. Forecasted Debt, using a projected General Fund deficit.
5. The Debt Burden %GDP: current, and end-of-year forecast.
I designed the chart to make those five concepts easy to spot. Please email me if you have any questions about it, or suggestions about how to improve the clarity.
Click to enlarge.
