Squash the Debt

How this works

Each note on this sheet is one dollar of the federal government's total public debt outstanding. On October 21, 2026, the Treasury reported $40,413,639,012,305.97. The figure at the top is an estimate: it counts on from there at $75,908 a second, the average over the year before, until the next figure.

The dollars are in the order they were borrowed: dollar #1 at the top left, in rows of $10 million, and the newest at the bottom, where more arrive every second. Each one says when it was borrowed, by when the debt last rose past it for good.

Click a dollar to squash it, and everyone here sees it go. It doesn't change the real debt; it shows how big it is. Squashing one a second each, it would take about 75,908 people clicking together just to keep up with new borrowing.

Undo (⌘Z, or Ctrl+Z) brings back your own last squash. With a keyboard, the arrow keys move over the sheet and Enter squashes the dollar in the middle.

Sources: Debt to the Penny and Historical Debt Outstanding, from the U.S. Treasury's Fiscal Data. An independent project, not affiliated with the U.S. government.