I hear a lot of complaining about the national debt. As a % of Gross Domestic Product, is our debt that high?

Question

That seems to me to be the only fair way to look at it.

Answer 1

An economy is simply a country, with borders porous only to the inflow and outflow of money.
It is also dynamic; if the the wealth of an economy rises faster than the debt it incurs, while its creditworthiness remains intact, then in theory its national debt can keep increasing in total at a greater speed (percentage) than the growth of its GDP.
So, the present USA national debt is ok in normal circumstances. If the nation ever needs to borrow more from its citizens or foreigners for an emergency, such as for the cost of a random foreign war, there might be a loss of confidence to lend to us by foreigners who already hold some of our debt to them.

Answer 2

Right now the economy is doing well so tax receipts are high and welfare expenses are low, but when then economy slows the deficit will increase and become a much larger percentage of GDP. With the baby boomers about to retire the cost of social security and medicare will increase and if we also have to pay more in interest on a bigger debt we will be in big trouble. Interest payment on the debt is already over $400 billion dollars a year which is over 3% of GDP

Answer 3

GDP = consumption + investment + (government spending) + (exports − imports)