No politician runs for office promising to be fiscally irresponsible, but the federal government now finds itself trillions of dollars in debt. Americans would prefer the federal government have less debt, but the problem doesn’t seem to affect their day-to-day lives and thus gets lost in the constant churn of the political news cycle.

But just how wide-reaching is the federal debt problem? How does it compare to other countries, and how much do we owe to foreign governments? Who would do a better job at reducing the debt: Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump?

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