Loading ...Press Release: Republican Study Committee, Chairman Tom Price, MD
The Ballooning National Debt
Through the Ceiling, Through the Roof
Washington, DC – The United States Treasury is prohibited by law from issuing more than $12.104 trillion in debt. For the moment, that is. You see, the Treasury has a simple way to raise this statutory limit whenever it runs up against it. All they have to do is ask Congress!
Treasury Secretary Geithner made just such a request last August, due in large part to the $1.42 trillion deficit the federal government racked up during the 2009 fiscal year.
“The Treasury and the OMB noted that the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program and the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, not all of which has been used, accounted for 24% of the deficit total. As a result, the country is very near to breaching its so-called debt ceiling, currently set at $12.1 trillion. Lawmakers, however, are expected to vote to raise that ceiling this fall.” (CNN Money, 10/16/09)
The upcoming increase will probably set the debt limit somewhere north of $13 trillion. When the Democrats (including then-Senator Obama) regained control of Congress in January 2007, the debt ceiling was $8.965 trillion. Since then, they’ve raised the debt ceiling four times between September 2007 and February 2009 for a total of $3.139 trillion in more debt.
That’s a 35% increase in the debt ceiling in less than 17 months. Now, that takes determination.
And despite President Obama’s attempt to blame his predecessor and hide behind soothing rhetoric like…
“I just want things to work. But what I know will not work is us seeing our debt levels double again like they did under George W. Bush. We can’t do it and it’s a burden on future generations that I’m not willing to accept.” (CNN, 1/18/09)
…this ballooning debt burden is only going to get worse. In fact, though the President is apparently unwilling to accept a doubling of the national debt, he’s obviously okay with going above and beyond. Under his budget plan, the total national debt will actually more than double – reaching $24.498 trillion by 2019.
That’s gonna make for a lot of uncomfortable votes.
