The national debt and the federal deficit are skyrocketing

-Source-USAToday-

The national debt is $21 trillion and counting.

The federal deficit soared last year to $779 billion and is projected to approach $1 trillion in 2019.

For most Americans, it’s difficult to comprehend a dollar figure that has that many digits. ($1 trillion, when written out in long form, is $1,000,000,000,000. Yes, that’s 12 zeroes.) The numbers are so huge that they almost seem surreal.

But the impact of the rising national debt and federal deficit is very real, even for average Americans, financial experts warn.

So here’s what you should know about the debt and the deficit – and why you should care.

Deficit and debt: What’s the difference?

The terms deficit and debt often appear in the same government reports that spell out the country’s financial woes. But they’re not the same.

Put simply, the deficit refers to the difference between what the federal government spends and the revenue it takes in annually. The debt is the amount of money the federal government must borrow to cover years of budget deficits.

Both are on the rise.

The deficit hit $779 billion in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 because tax revenues are not keeping pace with government spending, the Treasury Department announced Monday. That’s a 17 percent increase over the previous year – the highest deficit in six years. Read more