Notes to the Financial Statements

Note 14. Federal Debt Securities Held by the Public and Accrued Interest

Federal debt securities held by the public outside the Government are held by individuals, corporations, State or local governments, FRBs, foreign governments, and other entities outside the Federal Government. The above table details Government borrowing primarily to finance operations and shows marketable and nonmarketable securities at face value less net unamortized premiums and discounts including accrued interest.

Securities that represent Federal debt held by the public are issued primarily by the Treasury and include:

• Interest-bearing marketable securities (bills, notes, bonds, and inflation-protected).
• Interest-bearing nonmarketable securities (government account series held by deposit and fiduciary funds, foreign series, State and local government series, domestic series, and savings bonds).
• Non-interest-bearing marketable and nonmarketable securities (matured and other).

Section 3111 of Title 31, United States Code (U.S.C.) authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to use money received from the sale of an obligation and other money in the General Fund of the Treasury to buy, redeem, or refund, at or before maturity, outstanding bonds, notes, certificates of indebtedness, Treasury bills, or savings certificates of the Government. There were no buyback operations in fiscal years 2012 and 2011.

Gross Federal debt (with some adjustments) is subject to a statutory ceiling (i.e., the debt limit). Prior to 1917, the Congress approved each debt issuance. In 1917, to facilitate planning in World War I, Congress and the President first enacted a statutory dollar ceiling for Federal borrowing. With the Public Debt Act of 1941 (Public Law 77-7), Congress and the President set an overall limit of $65 billion on Treasury debt obligations that could be outstanding at any one time; since then, Congress and the President have enacted a number of debt limit increases. Most recently, on August 2, 2011, Public Law 112-25 was enacted, which increased the statutory debt limit to $14,694.0 billion on August 2, 2011, $15,194.0 billion after close of business on September 21, 2011, and $16,394.0 billion after close of business on January 27, 2012. Prior to the August 2011 and January 2012 increases, Treasury faced a period that required it to depart from its normal debt management procedures and to invoke legal authorities to avoid exceeding the statutory debt limit. As of September 30, 2012, and 2011, debt subject to the statutory debt limit was $16,027.0 billion and $14,746.6 billion, respectively. The debt subject to the limit includes Treasury securities held by the public and Government guaranteed debt of Federal agencies (shown in the table above) and intragovernmental debt holdings (shown in the following table). Please see Note 28—Subsequent Events for additional information.

Intragovernmental debt holdings represent the portion of the gross Federal debt held as investments by Government entities such as trust funds, revolving funds, and special funds. This includes trust funds that are earmarked funds. For more information on earmarked funds, see Note 24—Earmarked Funds. These intragovernmental debt holdings are eliminated in the consolidation of these financial statements.