Nine trillion is a staggering number. It’s hard to comprehend. Yet that’s how much the United States government owes [1] at its current national debt. That’s more than triple the total federal budget ($2.6 trillion). And that’s not even counting the estimated $50 trillion of obligations ahead of us [1] for Medicare and Social Security. Unless we act, the problem is going to get much, much worse.

It’s tough to get your mind around the debt and its potential implications [1], and it doesn’t help that this milestone was reached without a lot of media attention. Which is what makes it a perfect topic for the first Facing Up blog carnival.

If you’re not familiar with blog carnivals [2], it’s an event where a group of bloggers all post about a specific topic. One blog (Facing Up, in this case) serves as the organizer and host. All the participating blogs link to the host blog, which then posts a digest with links to all the participants. (You can find out more about carnivals here [3]).

We’ve picked “The $9 Trillion Debt” as our first carnival topic. Write about why you think it matters. Write about how this might impact the country and its future. Write about how you’d pay it off. Or write about any other aspect of the debt that you think is important. The deadline for submissions is Dec. 10, and we plan to have the digest of all the entries posted by Dec. 13. Send us an e-mail when your post is up, either to editorial AT publicagenda DOT org, or whallowell AT publicagenda DOT org, with “Blog Carnival” in the subject line. Be sure to include the permalink to your post.

Thanks for participating and we’re looking forward to your posts.