U.S. national debt hits $13 trillion

The U.S. Total Public Debt has hit a new record:

The U.S. national debt has passed the $13 trillion mark, according to USDebtClock.org, an independent website that tracks the real-time growth of U.S. revenues and spending.

On Tuesday, the national debt stood at $12,995,779,490,444.52, according to the Treasury Department's national debt-tracking website TreasuryDirect.gov.

Federal Debt Held by the Public, a better measure of the national debt because it doesn't count money some parts of the government owe to other parts of the government, is just shy of $8.5 trillion according to TreasuryDirect.gov. To put things in perspective, that's $75,973 per U.S. household.

Here's a graph of Federal Debt Held by the Public as of year-end 2009: