No more stimulus checks? But governments around the world might not be able to hand out stimulus checks in a future crisis. U.S. debt held by the public went from barely $5 trillion in fiscal 2008 to about $27 trillion today. Japan's government debt went from two-thirds the size of its economy when its bubble burst in 1990 to 2 times today. And that raises another problem that could affect savers down the road. It isn't just that governments won't have the spending lever to pull in the futurethey still have to keep paying for past budget deficits, too. Once today's higher rates are reflected in more of its notes and bonds, the U.S. government's interest bill alone will exceed a trillion dollars a year, more than discretionary spending on everything other than defense. In less than a decade the trust fund for paying Social Security retirement benefits is set to be exhausted