The widely reported $16.1 trillion federal US debt is a drop in the bucket Financial transparency is a must for U.S. publicly traded companies. But if the federal government had to abide by those same regulations, more Americans would know that the often-reported $16.1 trillion federal US debt doesn't come close to the truth about the nation's liabilities. In a Nov. 26 Wall Street Journal opinion piece, a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and a former chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee write: The actual liabilities of the federal government -- including Social Security, Medicare, and federal employees' future retirement benefits -- already exceed … [Read more...]