Washington's deception about federal debt can be found in a report by Andrew J. Rettenmaier, a senior fellow at the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis, titled, "How Big Is the Government's Debt?" Rettenmaier says that, as of 2001, the accumulated federal obligations to all people who've earned Social Security and Medicare benefits are $12.9 trillion for Social Security and $16.9 trillion for Medicare. Combined with the public and intragovernmental debt, the total federal debt burden is an unimaginable $35 trillion. That amounts to roughly $120,000 for every man, woman and child in America."