The federal government has $15 trillion (and growing) of debt on the books -- money owed to average investors, retirement funds, the Federal Reserve, foreign governments and others.

This debt is the accumulation of yearly federal budget deficits. It grew at about the same pace as the economy for most of the last sixty years, but then accelerated in 2008, when deficits got much larger. Even with spending cuts and tax increases, debt is expected to keep growing due to the mounting costs of Social Security and Medicare.

See if you can separate the facts from the myths surrounding the federal budget, the annual deficit and the accumulating national debt with our nine-question quiz.