So who owns the debt, who's it due to?
I think Coyote was being a bit dramatic with his IRS comment. I think he knows better. The IRS couldn't care less about your debt or what is touted as some individual portion of the National debt. The IRS only cares about your taxes.
No portion of the National debt is owed by any individual person but by all of us collectively. The "society," as represented by the central government, owes the debt. As with our currency, the debt is backed by the "full faith and credit of the United States," not by the "full faith and credit of the United States Government."
The US debt is in the form of Treasury notes and bonds. Anyone who buys/owns a treasury note or bond owns a piece of that debt settlement of which is to be paid to them when the note or bond becomes due.
I own a small chunk of that debt, about as much as to offset that fictitious individual portion that I owe. If you own ANY mutual fund then you own some as well since the funds keep their cash assets in Treasuries.
The vast majority of US National debt (about 60%) is owned by us, US domestic persons, retirement plans, corporate and Fed Reserve holdings, all kinds of funds. The remainder is owned by foreign people and entities. Foreign governments, or actually their central banks, own about 27%.
So that's who owes it and who owns it.
You young ones may be too young, but the rest of you should remember when Clinton did the budget surplus thing and the "peace dividend" was all the rage. One of the proposals to "spend" this windfall was to pay down the debt. Problem: the whole world's financial markets were apoplectic and shaking with fear. They were already feeling squeezed by the fact that the issuance of new bonds and notes had stopped since we didn't need to fund any more debt. The prospect of a shrinking US Treasuries market sent shocks through the whole financial world. People may think gold is the standard for asset protection, when in fact, for the major markets, funds, banks and governments the whole world over the capital preservation asset of choice is the US Government Treasury bond.