Republicans borrow money, and U.S. citizens must pay it back, or have their government go bankrupt.

If you'd like to check the figures used to make the chart above, visit the webpage of The U.S. Bureau of Public Debt (a U.S. government agency, part of the U.S. Department of the Treasury).

The yearly deficits calculated in the chart above come from subtracting the total national debt of one year from the total national debt of the previous year. For instance, the total national debt as of 9/30/2002 (the end of the fiscal year) was $6,228,235,965,597.16 and the total national debt as of 9/30/2003 was $6,783,231,062,743.62 so the deficit during that time was $554,995,097,146.46.

For a running total of U.S. government debt, see The U.S. National Debt Clock.

You can find links to reviews of 3 movies and 35 books about U.S. government corruption at Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.

Thanks to LittlePiggy.net for the idea and above chart and permission to use it.