I must correct myself...I was being too simplistic. The national debt does relate to the annual budget surplus/deficit in the sense that, when there is a surplus some of the debt is retired (or, in practical terms, the government needs to sell fewer bonds) and when there is a deficit the government needs to borrow more (to make up the shortfall) and the debt increases. The annual Federal budget always includes bond "sales" as income and bond retirement (purchase price plus interest) as expenses.