debt

The nation's debt leapt $166 billion in a single day last week, the third-largest increase in U.S. history, and it comes at a time when Congress is balking over higher spending and debt has become a key policy battleground.

The one-day increase for June 30 totaled $165,931,038,264.30 - bigger than the entire annual deficit for fiscal year 2007 and larger than the $140 billion in savings the new health care bill will produce over its first 10 years. The figure works out to nearly $1,500 for every U.S. household, or more than 10 times the median daily household income.

Daily debt calculations jump and fall, and big shifts are common. But all three of the biggest one-day debt increases have occurred under the tenure of President Obama, and all of the top six have been in the past two years - an indication of just how quickly the pace of deficit spending has risen under Mr. Obama and President George W. Bush...

(CNSNews.com) – On the same day President Barack Obama told a Wisconsin town hall gathering that his policies mean “the economy is headed in the right direction,” the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that federal debt could reach 87 percent of America’s gross domestic production by 2020, and surpass 100 percent of GDP by 2025.

Nevertheless, the president told the crowd in Racine, Wisc. – a town with the second highest unemployment in the state – that the economy is turning the corner.

“We had to take some tough steps to pull the country out of the freefall we faced when I took office,” Obama said. “Back then, the economy was shrinking faster than it had in decades. Today, it’s growing again. Back then, we were losing an average of 750,000 jobs a month. Today, we’ve added private sector jobs for five months in a row.”

Still, unemployment has risen since Obama took office in January 2009 – it is now at 9.7 percent...

The federal government is now $13 trillion in the red, the Treasury Department reported Wednesday, marking the first time the government has sunk that far into debt and putting a sharp point on the spending debate on Capitol Hill.

Calculated down to the exact penny, the debt totaled $13,050,826,460,886.97 as of Tuesday, leaping nearly $60 billion since Friday, the previous day for which figures were released.

At $13 trillion, that figure has risen by $2.4 trillion in about 500 days since President Obama took office, or an average of $4.9 billion a day. That's almost three times the daily average of $1.7 billion under the previous administration, and led Republicans on Wednesday to place blame squarely at the feet of Mr. Obama and his fellow Democrats...

(CNSNews.com) – Legislation to extend myriad tax breaks, unemployment benefits and other spending programs currently before the House would add $115 billion to the nation’s $13 trillion national debt in only two years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

That bill, the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act (H.R. 4213), would ultimately add $84 billion to the debt by 2020, a recent CBO report said. That bit of accounting magic is achieved because House Democrats delayed tax increases until after 2011 and double-counted an increase in the excise tax on oil, according to an analysis provided by the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.)...

Taxpayers have a nasty surprise coming. More and more future tax dollars will go to pay off old bills and old promises the federal government made, but couldn’t pay.

The money borrowed by the federal government will result in a national debt of some $20 trillion by the end of this decade and taxpayers will have to pay almost $1 trillion a year, just in interest.

The chaos and danger of such a predicament is evident in Greece, which is so deep in debt - its economy is in chaos with national strikes, violent street protests and pensions on the verge of collapse - all because Greece owes so much money abroad. The country is now forced to beg for even more loans at higher interest rates just to stay afloat...

The United States is drawing closer to the kind of debt crisis plaguing some European countries, where a financial emergency forces political leaders to make draconian spending cuts and tax increases to maintain the confidence of international investors.

Moody's, a top Wall Street credit agency, brought the U.S. closer to such a point this week by, for the first time, warning that the U.S. could lose its gold-plated AAA credit rating in coming years unless it quickly puts into place plans to curb budget deficits of more than $1 trillion that have the potential to destabilize government finances and the financial markets.

"Unless further measures are taken to reduce the budget deficit further or the economy rebounds more vigorously than expected, the federal financial picture as presented in [President Obama's Feb. 1 budget] will at some point put pressure on the AAA-government bond rating," Moody's said in a report Tuesday.

Mr.  read more »

Washington (AP) - Senate Democrats are counting on their soon-to-expire 60-vote majority to raise the federal debt ceiling by $1.9 trillion so they don't have to take more politically painful votes on government borrowing until after the fall midterm elections.

They have no room for error. In the face of monolithic Republican opposition, they'll need all 60 votes Thursday to let the government continue borrowing almost 40 percent of what it spends.

The legislation would put the government on track for a national debt of $14.3 trillion -- equal to about $45,000 for every American -- and provide a vivid reminder of the United States' dire fiscal straits. New estimates released by the Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday show that the U.S.  read more »

Washington (AP) - Senate Democrats on Wednesday proposed allowing the federal government to borrow an additional $1.9 trillion to pay its bills, a record increase that would permit the national debt to reach $14.3 trillion.

The unpopular legislation is needed to allow the federal government to issue bonds to fund programs and prevent a first-time default on obligations. It promises to be a challenging debate for Democrats, who, as the party in power, hold the responsibility for passing the legislation.

It's hardly the debate Democrats want or need in the wake of Sen.-elect Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts. Arguing over the debt limit provides a forum for Republicans to blame Democrats for rising deficits and spiraling debt, even though responsibility for the government's financial straits can be shared by both political parties.

The measure came to the floor under rules requiring 60 votes to pass.  read more »

Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) – While Congress has voted to raise the national debt ceiling to $12.4 trillion, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has reported that the federal government’s unfunded liabilities – the costs of promised benefits through Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and several other programs – total $62.9 trillion in today’s dollars.

When asked about these costs and the government’s entitlement promises to the American people, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) told CNSNews.com that it is “irresponsible” for the federal government to continue to spend money it does not have and that this issue will be the “most important thing” Congress will discuss next year.

“I said on the floor last night, American families can’t spend more than what they bring in for 36 of the last 40 years,” Boehner told CNSNews.com at his weekly briefing.  read more »

WASHINGTON – The federal government faces exploding deficits and mounting debt over the next decade, White House officials predicted Tuesday in a fiscal assessment far bleaker than what the Obama administration had estimated just a few months ago.

Figures released by the White House budget office foresee a cumulative $9 trillion deficit from 2010-2019, $2 trillion more than the administration estimated in May. Moreover, the figures show the public debt doubling by 2019 and reaching three-quarters the size of the entire national economy...