>I would too, but this still only paid part of the interest and none of the principal, as far as I can tell. As for the http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1821&sequence=0#table1 link you gave, that just further confuses the issue because the [first] table that shows the debt held by the public does NOT include interest on the debt. Further down that page, you see the interest amounts continually decreasing even under all of the years for Bush II. I would suspect that the CBO is spinning the numbers just as much as OMB might be. So for me, I'll take the link to the Bureau of the Public Debt figures.

That figure only includes the debt held by the public, not in intragovernmental holdings:

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpdodt.htm