By Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

A November poll by the Financial Times and the Peter G. Peterson Foundation found 64% of likely voters believe the country is on the wrong track in managing the national debt.

Which begs the question: What could the other 36% be thinking, if they are?

The poll found that 35% say the country is strongly on the wrong track while 30% say it’s somewhat wrong, which equals 65, not 64, because of rounding. Meanwhile, 24% say it’s somewhat on the right track, while 12% say it’s strongly on the right track.

It appears my columns on this subject have failed to reach all 330 million Americans.

So for the 36% who think we’re doing just fine, here are the numbers, according to the Treasury Department’s website.

– On Sept. 30, 2000, the national debt was $5.67 trillion after more than 200 years of the country’s existence.

– A little more than eight years later on Jan. 20, 2009, the last day of President George W. Bush’s presidency, it had risen $5 trillion and had nearly doubled to $10.63 trillion.

– On Jan. 20, 2017, the last day of President Obama’s presidency, it had risen more than $9 trillion more and had nearly doubled again to $19.95 trillion. That’s more than $1 trillion annually over eight years, including the years of the Great Recession that began at the end of Bush’s term.

– By Dec. 4, 2019, less than three years into President Trump’s presidency, it had increased more than $3 trillion and now stands at almost $23.1 trillion. It grew by $1.2 trillion last year during a supposedly strong economy. It is projected to continue growing at a similar rate for the foreseeable future – until something unforeseen happens, when it could really skyrocket.

These numbers are mind-bogglingly big, so let’s make them more understandable. Last fiscal year’s $1.2 trillion debt increase is the equivalent of roughly $3,645 for every American man, woman and child, or nearly $14,600 for a family of four. If I gave you the entire $21.3 trillion national debt at the beginning of 0 A.D., you’d have to spend more than $31.3 million every day to run out by the end of this year.

Does any of this sound like the United States is even remotely on the right track in managing its national debt?

What makes this issue so hair-pullingly frustrating, even for those of us lacking hair, is that there’s nothing theoretical or philosophical about it at its core. This is just math – mostly addition and multiplication, unfortunately. The increase in the government’s debt has happened the same way your family’s debt would increase: Too much spending matched by too little income.

And that being the case, the solution for Uncle Sam is the same as it would be in your household: Reduce spending, increase income, or, most realistically, some combination of both.

Families in debt because of poor choices (and not outside circumstances such as a major illness) often get on the right track only when their debt’s consequences force them to choose differently. They start losing their homes and cars, and their credit cards embarrassingly stop working in the checkout line. At that point, they must reduce unnecessary expenditures and find ways to earn extra money, or they’ll muddle through the rest of their lives and penalize their children as they start theirs.

What consequences would force Uncle Sam to get on the right track? Unfortunately, there’s no credit card company to send a reminder about past-due bills. Instead, the debt can increase seemingly painlessly for many years. The government simply will spend more each year on interest payments. Eventually, interest rates will rise as creditors like China begin doubting Uncle Sam will repay what it owes. However, the decision-makers won’t be personally affected by this.

What does affect them personally is when they lose elections, which hasn’t been a problem for them when it comes to this issue. The debt has increased with Republicans and Democrats in power, and the voters haven’t punished either for it.

So part of the solution involves this: Voters must know the country is strongly on the wrong track in managing the national debt, and then at least half must care strongly enough to do something about it on Election Day.