Headlines were made a couple of weeks ago when the Congressional Budget Office announced the national debt within 10 years would be $2 trillion higher than previously estimated. In 2019 the total federal debt held outside the government is projected to be $14 trillion, double today's amount. What does this all mean? Listen

Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"Several things. Of course, people are going to look at that $14 trillion and say, wow, that's a big number. Well, one thing that we economists bring to the table is to say, let's put that in perspective. And what we typically do is look at that debt as a percent of our overall economy. And when you do that, the numbers look troubling but perhaps less troubling. That is to say that the national debt as a percent of the economy will go from 54 percent today to 68 percent in 2019. Now, it also doesn't mean that at any point in time someone's going to come to your house or your children's house and present you with a bill and say, here, pay up. We can carry this debt over into future generations. In fact, this is one debt that we don't ever have to pay off. It just has to be carried. And I think that's the real issue here, because the larger the national debt we have, the higher the interest expense on that national debt, which means there's going to be less money to spend by government for other things or the federal government will have to increase taxes. So it's really what economists call an opportunity cost. We have a higher debt, higher servicing cost on that debt, meaning less money for other things. Either that money comes from the government or it comes from your pocket and my pocket."