The U.S. Treasury needed to pay off a record of approximately $7,546,726,000,000 in maturing Treasury securities in fiscal 2013, which ended last Monday, according to Treasury's official accounting.

 

During the same period, the Treasury turned around and issued another $8,323,949,000,000 in new Treasury securities.

 

The spread between the old debt held by the public that matured and was paid off during the fiscal year and the new debt that was sold to cover government spending over and above tax revenues, increased the net federal government debt held by the public by $777.223 billion during the fiscal year.

 

In the previous fiscal year, 2012, the Treasury had needed to redeem only $6,804,956,000,000 in Treasury securities, but then it needed to turn around and issue $7,924,651,000,000 in new securities—increasing the net debt held by the public by $1.119695 trillion.