By Jessica Mintz
The clock is running down on lawmakers' efforts to agree on a plan to keep the U.S. government from running out of money.
Just as your bank sets a limit on how much you can borrow on your credit card, Congress has set a limit for the Treasury -- $14.29 trillion. We actually hit the limit back in May, but through a series of accounting maneuvers the Treasury has been able to hold off the day of reckoning until now.
It’s almost impossible to imagine $14.29 trillion, but an infographic from Los Angeles-based designer Oto Godfrey gives it a try, using stacks of virtual $100 bills and comparing them with well-known landmarks. The image shown here represents a mere $100 million on a pallet. Visualizing $14 trillion (actually let's just round that up to $15 trillion) involves a truck, a football field and the Statue of Liberty (see below).
If you’re wondering what this mountain of currency has to do with you, you're not alone. Critics at Business Insider suggest there may be more productive ways of thinking about the national debt. For example, they point out that interest payments on the national debt as a percentage of gross domestic product is lower than it has been in decades.
The national debt, of course, is not to be confused with the federal budget deficit, the difference between government revenue and spending this year, which has topped $1.5 trillion – or in Godfrey’s world, a football field covered with double-stacked pallets packed with $100 bills.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner may indeed wake up to bare cupboards Tuesday, although in all likelihood Congress will raise the debt ceiling as it has done 78 times in the last 50 years. In the meantime, the White House has been busy cranking out graphics of its own to explain the national debt, and how it got that way.
