Public debt

Public debt is when a company or country borrows money from other people or organizations to pay for things like public services, education, or roads. It works like this: the government will ask people or organizations to lend it money, and in exchange it will promise to give them interest payments over time, and pay back the money in full in the future. People and organizations who lend the government money are sometimes called "bondholders." Bondholders expect to get their money plus some interest payments back. That's why governments must be careful with how much debt they take on—they don't want to put themselves in a position where they can't pay back their bondholders!