I want to verify if these US debt numbers accurate.

[enoch150]

The "unfunded liabilities" assumes that there are no taxes collected in the future to pay for future benefits- that you had to pay for them only with this year's revenues which vastly overstates them.

No, the unfunded liabilities that he is talking about is the present value of the entitlement shortfall taken to the infinite horizon. The SS portion of that is $17.9 Trillion. A 12.4% SS tax rate is assumed (6.2% employee/6.2% employer). The future unfunded liability of SS could be eliminated by increasing it to 8.1% employee/8.1% employer, or by reducing all current and future benefits by 21.9%. http://www.ssa.gov/oact/tr/2011/IV_B_LRest.html#267528

I'm not sure if the $117.63 Trillion figure is accurate, though.

[Zippyjuan]

No, the unfunded liabilities that he is talking about is the present value of the entitlement shortfall taken to the infinite horizon. The SS portion of that is $17.9 Trillion. A 12.4% SS tax rate is assumed (6.2% employee/6.2% employer). The future unfunded liability of SS could be eliminated by increasing it to 8.1% employee/8.1% employer, or by reducing all current and future benefits by 21.9%. http://www.ssa.gov/oact/tr/2011/IV_B_LRest.html#267528

I'm not sure if the $117.63 Trillion figure is accurate, though.

Thanks for more information on that.

Run the current budget deficit to the "infinite horizon" and you can also come up with an infinite "unfunded liabliity" or an infinite national debt too. The numbers get bigger the longer you try to extrapolate into the future. We can make that unfunded liabilities number basically anything we want.