July '05 National Debt Thermometer
The USA's debt burden stands at 64.7% GDP, an uptick from last month's 64.2%, but little to no change in rank versus the other countries on the chart below. (In the last few months, the seasonal spike in tax receipts caused the debt-to-GDP ratio to level off; we are now past that plateau for this year. We should end the year at 65.2%, which would be up a half point versus last year-end. That forecast is shown in the final chart at the end of this article.)
A technical note. I am now sourcing every non-USA country number from the CIA World Factbook, to keep country-to-country comparisons apples-to-apples. Because of that switch, I had to drop Canada from the chart; for some reason, the Factbook shows "N/A" for Canada's debt-to-GDP ratio.
Also, thanks to John Opie for suggesting some improvements to the chart above. He was correct, it's easier to read now.
