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We know that the federal deficit is ballooning at a rather scary pace. However, the growing debt that we see is only a part of the picture. There is probably more debt to come as we work to get out of our financial mess, and as the government has to deal with the burdens placed upon it. CNN Money offers a look at the debt that we do see:

The first is the debt held by the public. That’s money owed to those who have bought U.S. Treasurys, most notably big bond mutual funds and foreign governments. Debt held by the public today is roughly $8 trillion and rising.

The second number is the money the federal government owes to government trust funds, such as those for Medicare and Social Security. The government has used revenue collected for those programs to cover other outlays. Currently, the debt to the trust funds is approaching $5 trillion.

But what about the debt we don’t see right now? What are we probably on the hook for going forward? Here are some things that are not accounted for in the budget — which puts America’s debt load at $22 trillion by 2020.

1. Fannie and Freddie: While not officially nationalized, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are nonetheless currently being run by the government, with the U.S. taxpayer “owning” the two companies. They were private companies with government charters, able to profit, but investors knew that if anything went wrong, the government would bail the companies out. And the investors were right.
2. Tax breaks: We love tax breaks. However, the costs of tax breaks over time start to add up. Especially since we have become a society that demands certain things from our government. We may rant and storm about the federal deficit, but at the same time we demand the government provide jobs, roads, police, education, fire departments, and even pork barrel projects (as long as that federal pork comes to our communities). We demand these things and tax breaks. And all of that adds up — no matter who is in charge.
3. Social Security and Medicare: We don’t know the costs of these programs going forward. But there is almost certainly going to be a shortfall, and these costs are going to increase quite a bit.

With these things unaccounted for in the current calculations, it is little surprise that deficit hawks foresee a debt load of far more than $22 trillion at the end of this new decade.