At nearly $12.1 trillion, the U.S. national debt has reached a size that is incomprehensible to most people and as intangible as the '"Big Bang" or bipartisanship.
But it is real in West Virginia, where a small, nearly anonymous group of government accountants calculate the public debt to the penny each day, living a mathematic nightmare and number cruncher's dream.
At a large desk in Parkersburg, Jaime Saling watches over roughly 6,500 pieces of data and trillions of dollars each day. Her title takes up a few characters itself: Saling is the debt accounting branch manager for the Bureau of Public Debt.
She and a division of just 15 people quietly and relentlessly work to account for every penny of the national debt. It is tedious and potentially overwhelming work, but Saling acts as if she flies jet fighters.
Click to see the staggering stats in motion
Our national debt, and corresponding presidents (thru 2004)"I get very excited," the petite and energetic Saling says, "They call me a nerd, several times; I think it's because I get very excited about all the work we do."
That work happens in a simple one-story, brick building in Parkersburg, some 300 miles from Washington. The public debt offices landed there thanks to heavyweight home-state Sen. Robert Byrd.
The bureau's offices are tucked into a corner of town that's easy to miss. A brown hill and train track sit on one side, parking lots for county offices on the other. The locale is still a surprise to some.
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