The question in the title is becoming the new political meme for why we should cut spending on programs which are otherwise popular amongst voters.
How true is it, however, that we’re borrowing from China for our spending? Or rather, to what extent are we borrowing from China vs elsewhere?
As always, go to the source for the data:
September 2012 US Treasury Bulletin
http://www.fms.treas.gov/bulletin/b2012_3.pdf
See Table OFS-2 on page 41 for breakdown of Treasury holdings by type of investor.
Major Foreign Holders of Treasuries
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Documents/mfh.txt
I used March 2012 data for all my calculations since it’s the most recent month for which ALL data points are available.
Here are the results:
Ownership of the National Debt
Federal Government__________ 41.05%
Foreign/International Investors__ 32.95%
Private Domestic Investors_____ 23.19%
State and Local Governments___ 2.80%
- The Federal Government holdings primarily consist of the Social Security fund, but also include federal worker and military pensions plus intra-governmental accounts.
- Foreign/International Investors includes both private investors/institutions and governments.
- Private domestic investors includes banks, insurance companies, mutual funds, pension funds, and individuals.
67.05% of the national debt is owned domestically. Right off the bat, the question should be – “is it worth borrowing money from OURSELVES to pay for that”.
China is the largest of our foreign creditors, accounting for 22.22% of the 32.95% of foreign holdings. Japan is the second largest, accounting for 21.03% of the 32.85%. Brazil is in the third spot at 5.05% of the 32.95%. After that, it drops precipitously, with a few dozen countries splitting the remaining 51.7% of the 32.95%.
So what is the total percentage of the national debt owned by China?
7.34%
By way of comparison, Japan holds 6.95% of the national debt.
Also interesting is the trend. From July 2011 through July 2012, China’s holdings of the national debt dropped from $1314.9B to $1149.6B while Japan’s increased from $885.2B to $1117.1.
It seems to me that the question “is it worth borrowing from China to pay for that” is highly misleading and disingenuous.