Bureau of Public Debt - Explained
What is the Bureau of Public Debt?
Written by J. Mance Gordon
Updated at April 21st, 2024
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What is the Bureau Of Public Debt?
Public Debt refers to the total borrowings of a government, it is how much debt a government owes and must repay to entities outside of itself. The United States Treasury Department handles the debt of the U.S government, this is managed through the Bureau of the Fiscal Service. The Bureau of Public Debt is an agency within the Bureau of the Fiscal Service of the US Treasury Department that borrows funds to finance the expenditure of the government. This agency also keeps accounts of debt owed for the purpose of repayment.
What Does the Bureau Of Public Debt Do?
Aside from borrowing funds to finance the expenditure of the U.S government, the Bureau of Public Debt engages in business transactions and e-commerce in the US. This agency also provides services to other agencies of the federal government. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Bureau of Public Debt in 1940. The Bureau was formed as a part of the Treasury Department and is responsible for providing funds to finance government expenditures (mainly through borrowing), and also settle all outstanding debts. The Bureau of Public Debt was created to help the United States government centralize its debts. It is important to know that when the agency was created, it was not established by repaying existing beds, there, it was created to borrow money for the government to run its projects. There are several ways the Bureau obtains debt for the government, these include the sale of securities such as Treasury bills, US saving bonds, and other fixed-income securities. The agency also auctions marketable securities every year to raise debt financing for the government. During its active years, the Bureau of Public Debt borrowed about $5 trillion for the federal government every year. In 2012, the Bureau of the Fiscal Service (Fiscal Service) was created, as a consolidation of the Bureau of Public Debt and the Financial Management Service (FMS). The consolidation was ordered by the then US Secretary of Treasury, Timothy Geithner. Upon its establishment, the Fiscal Service is responsible for the accounts, financing, collection of the debt owed to the government and providing specific services to other agencies of the U.S government.