Great question. I am so glad you asked, because I have a stored-up rant about the debt and you've given me a chance to pour it out. :) The best way to eliminate inflation and look at how much debt a nation is in is to look at debt as a percent of Gross Domestic Product. The US National Debt right after solving the Great Depression and fighting WWII was 120% of GDP. Today it is 41%. What's missing is the political will of this generation to roll up their sleeves like the Greatest Generation did and pay the darned bill. We set the top tax rate at 91% back in 1945 and we paid the debt down. Contrary to right-wing-revisionists, that tax rate did not destroy the economy or make the rich flee to other countries with their money. It produced the postwar boom and brought the debt down to near zero. The only problem we face today is the Gimmie Generation of voters. People say they want fiscal responsibility. But they reelect the senators and congressmen who bring home the pork. They say they care about the debt, but today's US top tax rate of 35% is the lowest individual tax rate of any of the industrialized nations, and voters are clamoring for still more tax cuts. We won't fix the debt in the US until one of two things happens. We either educate the voting public on fiscal reality, or reality intervenes in the form of a total collapse of the economy and does the education for us. It'll probably be the later method, because while it's fun to skip class and go fishing there are no drop-outs allowed in the school of hard knocks.