Debt Clock!

I was working on my taxes the other day it dawned on me, that this year is a great return! I mean the new home-buyer thing is pretty cool (for me at least) and let me be honest it couldn't come at a better time. Now after a scare (turbotax imported some data from my brokerage, and proceeded to tell me I owed like 10k (slightly scary)) I then realized that it assumed I bought the shares for nothing- growing money on trees literally. I then realized that it failed to import about 70% of my other sales/transactions so I had to do those manually; so much for technology. Anyway we get down to the nitty gritty and I fill out the section I had been excited to reach; the First Time Homebuyer section. Well I(we) qualified for the full value so I got my 50% which is a cool $4000. Now as I said, I could use the money (who couldn't use it?) but it got me thinking; who needs it more? Maybe this a dumb thing to think about but I was curious- how far would my 4k go towards my share of the national debt. Enter Debt Clock (you should check it!) After the first wave of nausea and dizziness associated with just a terribly constructed page, try and focus on certain sectors, and it is actually quite interesting, and scary, and downright depressing (or maybe you just don't care- but you should!).

So my share (and your share too) $40,368, and my share as taxpayer is $113,831, which means that I am getting BACK, 10% of my share of the debt or 3.5% of my share as a taxpayer. Not a trivial amount to be giving away in this humble payers opinion. I suppose in the large scale its less than pennies; I just get concerned if we're not mortgaging our future with my(and many others) mortgages today.