Here's a snapshot of US Federal debt based on official data from the US Treasury and the 2011 Federal Budget issued by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The thumbnail is a linear chart, which highlights the rapid debt increase in the six-year forecast of the OMB.

I've also updated my log scale version, which gives a clearer historical perspective of debt over the 115-year timeframe covered in the chart. In a series of posts last year I highlighted the increasing disconnect between debt and taxes, a topic that's especially relevant in this year of unlimited Roth conversions (more on that in a future post).

For now let's focus on the linear chart, which gives us a better look at the OMB debt forecast. In round numbers, the debt at the end of 2009 was $11.88 Trillion (to be more precise, $11,875,851,000,000). Uncle Sam sees a 66% rise in the debt over the next six years — up 16.1% at year end, 9.8% in 2011, 7.9% in 2012, 6.8% in 2013, and 6.2% in both 2014 and 2015.

But how reliable are Uncle Sam's debt forecasts? Have his forecasts in recent years been on target? Or does he chronically miss the mark? That's a topic I'll explore in a future post.