Is USAFacts honest?

Here is what USAFacts says about itself:

USAFacts is nonpartisan; our data comes exclusively from government sources, and our analysis is reliable and credible by design

Here is what USAFacts says about federal “debt”

The federal government had $38.5 trillion in debt as of 2025. If you can’t wrap your mind around that number (which is understandable), it comes out to about $112,700 per person. When the federal government spends more than it brings in, a budget deficit occurs. The government then borrows money by selling bonds and other securities to cover the deficit. Generally, the federal debt is an accumulation of budget deficits over time. So, how has the debt changed?

Wrong. The federal government never borrows dollars. It has the infinite ability to create dollars. It never can run short of dollars, Even if the government stopped collecting taxes, it could continue to pay its bills, forever.

Who says so?

Alan Greenspan, Former Federal Reserve Chairman: “A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency. There is nothing to prevent the federal government from creating as much money as it wants and paying it to somebody. The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print the money to do that.”

Ben Bernanke, Former Federal Reserve Chairman: “The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost. It’s not tax money… We simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account.”

Beardsley Ruml, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York . “The necessity for a government to tax in order to maintain both its independence and its solvency is true for state and local governments, but it is not true for a national government. All federal taxes must meet the test of public policy and practical effect. The public purpose which is served should never be obscured in a tax program under the mask of raising revenue.”

Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome Powell: “As a central bank, we have the ability to create money digitally.”

Statement from the St. Louis Fed: “As the sole manufacturer of dollars, whose debt is denominated in dollars, the U.S. government can never become insolvent, i.e., unable to pay its bills. In this sense, the government is not dependent on credit markets (i.e. borrowing) to remain operational.”

Paul O’Neill, “I come to you as a managing trustee of Social Security. Today we have no assets in the trust fund. We have promises of the good faith and credit of the United States government that benefits will flow.”

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize–winning economist: “The U.S. government is not like a household. It literally prints money, and it can’t run out. The government can always finance its spending by creating money.”

Eric Tymoigne (Economist) “A sovereign government does not need to collect taxes or issue bonds to finance spending. It finances directly through money creation.”

The federal debt grew to $39 trillion by April 2026, 4% higher than April a year prior after adjusting for inflation, and 36% higher than in 2019.

Federal debt per person has increased at an average rate of 5% annually since 2001.

Federal debt outstanding per person in the US
Analyzing debt relative to gross domestic product (GDP) makes it easier to track debt alongside economic and inflationary changes. It can also indicate the nation’s ability to repay its debt. When gross debt reaches 100% of GDP, it indicates that the country owes as much as its economy generates annually. In a dataset dating back to 1980, debt first surpassed 100% of the nation’s GDP in the fourth quarter of 2012. (Gross debt includes money the government borrows from itself plus debt held by the public, meaning Federal Reserve, US households and businesses, and foreign entities. Gross debt’s)

The nation’s debt as a percentage of GDP reached a peak of 133% in the second quarter of 2020. As of Q4 2025, the debt-to-GDP ratio was 123%.

The government must pay interest on its debts just as people pay interest on credit card bills, for example. Debt interest payments comprised 13.8% of government spending in fiscal year 2025 — nearly $1 trillion. Interest payments change based on the debt’s balance and current interest rates.