National debt
As usually defined, this denotes the total sum of the outstanding debtobligations of a country's central government. (But occasionally writers may use the term somewhat more broadly to refer to the total indebtedness of all levels of government, including regional and local governments, and sometimes also the indebtedness of government owned business entities such aslocal transit and communications systems or nationalized industries as well.) The national debt represents the accumulated total of all the government budget deficits of past years, less the accumulated total of all the government budget surpluses of past years.
