Total debt is the sum of all IOUs ever issued by the Treasury and is (egad) 98% of GDP. Total debt is the sum of the public debt–which is held by individuals, foreign gov’ts and financial institutions–and is 61% of GDP, and the intra-governmental debt, which consists of gov’t IOUs held by the gov’t (the Social Security Trust Fund) and is 38% of GDP. As recently as ’00 the total debt was just 57% of GDP, less than the public debt is today.