Posted on 05/02/2016 7:14:18 PM PDT by xzins
In the six months that have passed since then-retiring House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell cut a budget deal with President Barack Obama that suspended the legal limit on the federal debt until March 15, 2017, the federal debt has increased by more than $1 trillion.
The Senate passed “The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015” with a vote held in the early morning hours of Friday, Oct. 30. Obama signed it on Monday, Nov. 2.
At the close business on Oct. 30, 2015, the total federal debt was $18,152,981,685,747.52. By the close of business on April 28, 2016—the latest date for which the Treasury has published the number--the total federal debt was $19,186,207,744,589.55.
That is an increase of $1,033,226,058,842.03.
On Monday, Nov. 2--the day Obama signed the Bipartisan Budget Act and thus suspended the debt limit--the debt took a big leap. It closed that day at $18,492,091,120,833.99—up $339,109,435,086.47 from its $18,152,981,685,747.52 closing on Friday, Oct. 30.
Prior to that, the part of the federal debt subject to the then-legal limit of $18,113,000,080,959.35 had been frozen just below that limit for more than seven months (from March 13, 2015 through Oct. 30, 2015), during a “debt issuance suspension period” that Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew had declared on March 13, 2015, to push back the date at which the debt limit would be exceeded.
In a July 29, 2015, letter to Speaker Boehner, Lew indicated he was planning to extend the then-ongoing debt issuance suspension period, and explained its basic operations.
“On March 16, 2015, the outstanding debt of the United States reached the statutory limit,” Lew wrote. “As a result, Treasury had to begin employing extraordinary measures to continue to finance the government on a temporary basis. These measures, which we have used in previous debt limit impasses, include a debt issuance suspension period with respect to investment of the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund and suspension of the daily reinvestment of Treasury securities held by the Government Securities Investment Fund of the Federal Employees’ Retirement System Thrift Savings Plan. The debt issuance suspension period currently lasts until July 30. Tomorrow, I expect to extend the debt issuance through October 30.”
According to the official summary of the law, Section 901 of the “Bipartisan Budget Act,” which Congress passed on Oct. 30 and Obama signed Nov. 2, provided that the “public debt limit is suspended through March 15, 2017.”
The $1,033,226,058,842.03 increase in the debt in the six months since then equals approximately $6,828 for each of the 151,320,000 persons whom the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated had a full or part-time job in the United States as of this March.
I think the Republican leadership needs to take a bow!
What a great example!
Why the purge must begin.
Oh, dear, I think debt growth has reached an exponential phase.
We don’t have much of a chance to turn this ship around—if anyone can do it, it would be someone like Trump.
With Trump we have an actual chance of growing our way out of debt although it still will require some fiscal discipline.
Over a trillion in just 6 months.
It is mind blowing.
No worries Mr. Trump will wipe out the debt in his first term with savings from the Medicare/Medicaid drug program.
I’d like to see a breakdown of where $1T goes in just 6 months.
This is terrible - I thought we hit the point of no return at $16T.
No one fights against it. Hence, the purge.
I think I read the point of no return is $24 trillion
But geez, I can’t figure out why anyone would really want to be the engineer on a runaway train
Aka POTUS
So what did Mccriminal and boner think would happen when they took the lid off of debt spending?
Isn’t going to be pretty when the debt bubble pops.
The truth is no one has any idea who is spending this money and what it is being spent for.
Simple Cloward Piven strategy writ large on the financial arena.
That is why the debt limit is suspended until March 15, 2017.
This was not a two year deal. It was an 18 month deal.
And, at this rate, with no check in site, they will burn through another two trillion dollars by March 15. 2017.
The political class which has run things for the last 25 years has brought this nation to the brink of ruin.
No money, no jobs, racial tension, invasion by illegals, and the collapse of a moral society.
All brought to you by the professional politicians of both parties, who have impoverished us, but enriched themselves and their cronies in the process.
We are at the threshold of being the same society described in Atlas shrugged.
What awaits us is a tremendously painful financial reset that will make the Great Depression look tame by comparison.
Donald Trump is the nation’s only hope of surviving such a catastrophe.
Yes, it is that serious.
Lyin Paul Ryan is the proud papa of this mess.
It will have to be more cuts than just two programs. It will have to be across the board and with an increase in income.
Way to go Ryan and the rest of you rats. Killing us and future generations in America. You must be so proud.
Just ask the media, Ryan is a frickin’ budget, financial genius.
/sarc
$500,000,000 went to the UN climate change fund.
Have you ever wondered why someone doesn’t just say, “Well last year we overspent. Everyone is to expect 7% less this year....everyone. If you got 100 last year, then you’re getting 93 this year.
If you got 100 billion, you’re getting 93 billion.
Ok. Go make it happen.
I’m afraid even then the spiraling debt is out of control.
You could get rid of the entire Federal Gov’t and the military tomorrow and it would not stop. And that’s not going to happen.
At $2 Trillion a year, there’s something gonna go boom.
Prepare as best you can, is my advice. And I always pass along John 3:17-18 to all who care because there are always thread lurkers reading and not posting.
It gets really scary to think about when you consider that the total national debt didn’t reach $1 trillion until 1980.
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