Our Debt! What has government borrowed on your behalf?

Millions, Billions, Trillions? Who can understand these amounts?

Let's put things into a perspective I can understand. For every $100 billion spending program, that is $325 for every person ($870 per household). A trillion dollar program costs us $3,250 per person ($8,700 per household).

Given this context, just how much money has our local, state, and federal government obligated us for? In the table below, I have tried to find these debt and unfunded obligations. The total comes to $418,000 per person ($1,123,000 per household). Got your checkbook?

Note that there are plans to pay for many of these liabilities. For example, we do pay SSN and Medicare taxes, though not enough to cover the total cost. Local debt is usually paid for by property or sales taxes. But one way or another, we will pay! Now you know how much.

(1) http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np
(2) various sources
(3) http://www.pbgc.gov/docs/2009amr.pdf
(4) http://downloads.pewcenteronthestates.org/The_Trillion_Dollar_Gap_final…
(5) http://www.fdic.gov/news/news/press/2010/pr10036.html
(6) 2009 Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports
(7) Congressional Budget Office projections. Note that their projections are quite rosy. They project federal revenues to double by 2010. Federal revenues increased less than 5% in the previous decade.
(8) 309 million people, 115 million households (US Census Bureau)