The growing national debt, courtesy of those financial experts in D.C.

If you're worried about financial turmoil, take your eyes off Wall Street and put them on Washington, D.C. When it comes to the public purse, this just isn't good news:

In a sign of the times, the legendary National Debt Clock in New York City has run out of digits to record the growing debt.

The Times Square-area ticker needs two additional digits to track a national debt 100 times larger than the current $10.2 trillion.

As a short-term fix the digital dollar sign on the billboard-style clock has been switched to a number one - the "1" in $10 trillion. The Durst Organization says it plans to update the sign next year.

We'll need that spiffy, updated National Debt Clock -- with the refurbishment paid for in euros, I presume -- to take account of the presidential candidates' bloated healthcare proposals ($1 trillion to $2 trillion), financial bailout scams ($700 billion plus pork) and schemes to nationalize bad mortgages ($300 billion).

Before the latest round of let's-buy-votes, the National Taxpayers Union estimated that the major-party presidential candidates would bulk up the already busting-at-the-seams federal budget by hundreds of billions of dollars.

NTUF's fourth and final round of assigning price tags to the candidates' platforms since January 29 found that Sen. McCain (R-AZ) would increase yearly federal spending by $92.4 billion, compared to Sen. Obama's (D-IL) $293.0 billion.

Increasing federal spending isn't actually an immutable law of nature, the tax watchdog group found. It apparently is possible for a presidential candidate to propose spending less.

NTUF also released a first-time analysis of Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr, who would instead cut annual federal spending by $200.9 billion. The studies include proposals through September 19.

Barring a miracle, though, Barr isn't headed to the White House. So that National Debt Clock is going to get a vigorous workout in the years to come.