What Consumers Owe Uncle Sam

``Total U.S. consumer credit -- which includes credit cards, auto loans and student debt, but not mortgages -- stood at $3.54 trillion at the end of March, according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve. That's the most on record, both in dollar terms and as a share of gross domestic product... What's really unusual, though, is the source of the money: The federal government accounted for almost 28 percent of the total. That's up from less than 5 percent before the 2007-2009 recession, thanks in large part to the government's efforts to promote education by making hundreds of billions of dollars in student loans directly, rather than going through banks. Here's how that looks:''