Remember the national debt, that multitrillion fiscal embarrassment, which Ross Perot once compared to a "crazy aunt" hidden in the basement?

Despite all the tax hikes and spending cuts in the new U.S. budget accord, the overall national debt--now at least $3.2 trillion--is expected to balloon by another trillion dollars in the 1990s.

Interest payments on all that red ink will cost more than the defense budget by 1997, according to congressional estimates. Federal borrowing, meanwhile, will remain vast--gobbling up cash that might otherwise go to private investments that spark economic growth and create jobs.

"Less has been accomplished than the legislators are taking credit for," maintains Mickey D. Levy, an economist with NationsBank in New York.

Yet if the national debt has become sort of a national punching bag--grist for everyone from stand-up comedians to political opportunists to foreign leaders--the real dangers it poses often are misunderstood, many analysts contend.

By virtually all accounts, it is a financial albatross and threatens increasing turmoil in the coming years. But agreement ends there. How much debt would trigger a panic is unknown. Investors are still happy to lap up Treasury bonds by the billions, as they did in an auction last week.

Even the debt's exact size is arguable, and its role in making America dependent on foreign investors often is exaggerated, statistics suggest.

Take the much-ballyhooed threat from overseas. There have been ominous warnings that foreign investors could get fed up with America's fiscal imbalances and dump their U.S. Treasury securities, sparking a financial debacle.

In fact, 83% of the debt is held by Americans--banks, insurance companies, private individuals, local governments and others--according to a May study by the Congressional Budget Office. For all the anxiety about foreign influence, the overseas share has not increased since 1980.

"Thus far," reported the CBO researchers, "these fears have proved ill-founded."

Holders of U.S. Treasury securities--sold as bonds, notes and bills--are helping finance the national debt whether they realize it or not. Moreover, they make money on the interest, which ripples back into the economy.

There also is confusion about the debt's magnitude.