How much is the national debt? A look at federal debt, deficit and spending by the numbers

Photographer: AP Graphics Bank

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Posted: 08/02/2012

By: Lizzie Jury

Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, agreed to a deal to fund the government past this November's elections. The deal leaves working out a budget up to the next Congress and provides funding for the federal government through March 2013, well beyond the presidential inauguration in January.

By the numbers, here's a look at how the nation's fiscal situation adds up.

$15,873,767,378,850.16 - Total outstanding public debt on July 30, 2012.

$10,626,877,048,913.08 - Total outstanding public debt held on January 20, 2009, the day President Barack Obama was inaugurated.

$1,047,000,000,000 - Top limit for 2013 government spending.

6 months - Length of a continuing resolution to fund the government, based on a July 31, 2012, agreement by Obama, Boehner and Reid.

49 - States that require a balanced budget. (Vermont does not.)

$3,277,369.23 - Donations to reduce the public debt received by the U.S. Treasury in 2011.

74 - Percent who said they favor a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget during a July 2011 CNN/ORC poll.

12 - Consecutive U.S. budgets that have reflected a deficit.

24.1 - Federal spending outlays in 2011 as percentages of the GDP.

8.1 - Percent of the fiscal year 2012 GDP equal to the federal budget deficit, as estimated by the Congressional Budget Office in March 2012.

4 - Number of balanced budgets former presidential candidate Newt Gingrich claimed credit for as House speaker during a January debate in Jacksonville, Florida.

11 - Times the Congress has voted to raise the debt limit since 2001.

$787 billion - Amount of the stimulus bill signed into law by Obama in 2009 as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.