Chart of the Day: National Debt Under Obama

Two-thirds of a trillion in the last month...

Via The Daily Sheeple

Ex-GAO Head: Real US Debt Is Close To $65 trillion

Those pesky unfunded liabilities...

Via The Hill:

The former U.S. comptroller general says the real U.S. debt is closer to about $65 trillion than the oft-cited figure of $18 trillion.
Dave Walker, who headed the Government Accountability Office (GAO) under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, said when you add up all of the nation’s unfunded liabilities, the national debt is more than three times the number generally advertised.
“If you end up adding to that $18.5 trillion the unfunded civilian and military pensions and retiree healthcare, the additional underfunding for Social Security, the additional underfunding for Medicare, various commitments and contingencies that the federal government has, the real number is about $65 trillion rather than $18 trillion, and it’s growing automatically absent reforms,” Walker told host John Catsimatidis on “The Cats Roundtable” on New York’s AM-970 in an interview airing Sunday.[...]
He said Americans have “lost touch with reality” when it comes to spending.
Keep on reading…

Nation debt increased $145,131.60 per household while retiring Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada served in Congress

Wow!

Via CNS News:

(CNSNews.com) – The debt of the federal government has grown $16,955,289,814,977.42 during the 32 years that current Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada has served in the United States Congress. That equals an increase of about $145,131 for every household in the country.
There have been five presidents during that time, including three Republicans (Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush) and two Democrats (Bill Clinton and Barack Obama).
Reid was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1982 and then was elected to the Senate in 1986. He first took office in the House on Jan. 3, 1983, the first business day in January of that year. At the beginning of that day, according to the Monthly Statement of the Public Debt for December 1982, the total public debt of the federal government was $1,197,073,000,000.
Reid announced today he would not seek reelection in 2016. As of March 25 of this year, the latest day for which debt numbers are available, the federal debt was $18,152,362,814,977.42.
That means that since Reid first joined Congress in 1983, the federal debt has increases $16,955,289,814,977.42.
As of December 2014, According to the Census Bureau, there were 116,827,000 households in the United States. The $16,955,289,814,977.42 that the debt has increased since Harry Reid first joined Congress thus equals $145,131.60 per household.
Keep on reading…

Denial: Obama claims, “We don’t have an urgent deficit crisis,”

The U.S. is over $16 trillion in debt and adding a trillion a year and national debt isn't urgent? What kind of liberal alternate universe is Obama from?

Via The Blaze:

President Barack Obama said the country isn’t facing a spending or deficit problem, only an ideological problem from Republicans who want to cut government programs for health care and children.
“We don’t have an urgent deficit crisis,” Obama said Friday at a town hall meeting on the campus of Binghamton University in Binghamton, N.Y. “The only crisis we have is the one that is manufactured in Washington and it’s ideological and the basic notion is that we shouldn’t be helping people get health care and we shouldn’t be helping kids who can’t help themselves and whose parents are under resourced, we shouldn’t be helping them get a leg up.”
Keep reading…

Chart of the Day: Doubling the National Debt...

This is Obama's mission accomplished moment. He should put up a huge banner...

Via WSJ:

President Obama is pitching his new budget proposal as a fiscal peace offering to Republicans, but the details suggest everyone should expect more conflict. The fiscal 2014 plan he released Wednesday is a very slightly modified version of his previous budgets that reduces the deficit by raising taxes and trading defense cuts for more domestic spending.

The real news is that his budget ratifies much of the spending increase of the first term and tries to lock it in. He wants the feds to spend $3.78 trillion next year ($11,944 per American), which would still be 22.2% of national output nearly four years into an economic recovery. Before the financial panic in 2008, the government was spending about $1 trillion less, or closer to $2.7 trillion a year and an average of 20% of GDP—and President Bush was no slouch as a spender himself.

Mr. Obama wants federal spending to grow to $4.45 trillion by 2018 fueled mostly by the exploding costs of his Affordable Care Act. This spending surge appears smaller than it is only because the government will bank large reductions in military spending as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars wind down. But unlike in the 1990s, this peace dividend will be spent.

Keep on reading…

Amusing: Congressional Democrats ask to have national debt clock turned off...

Can you blame them? They own the last 6 trillion.

Via The Daily Caller:

Some members of Congress apparently don’t like to be reminded about how much debt the country continues to rack up.

During a House Financial Services Committee hearing Tuesday on the budget, two Democrats complained after House Financial Services Committee chairman Jeb Hensarling instructed that two monitors in the hearing room display a real-time running national debt clock.

California Rep. Maxine Waters and Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison both issued complaints about the displays, according to video of the hearing.

Republicans agreed to turn it off while democrats speak. I wouldn't have given them that much.  

Video: The American People Speak Out: Fix the National Debt

From “Fix the Debt” founded by Democrat Erskine Bowles and Republican Alan Simpson.  

The American People Speak Out: Fix the National Debt 

 

Obama on national debt: "We don't have to worry about it short term."

The agencies that downgraded out credit rating beg to differ...

Via RCP:

President Obama addressed the debt and deficit, saying it is not a problem in the "short term," during an appearance on CBS's "Late Show" with host David Letterman. Obama also said he did not know what the national debt was when he took office. 

When a concerned Letterman asked him about the debt, Obama laid the responsibility for the U.S. national debt and deficit on his predecessor former President George W. Bush.[...] 

When asked if he remember what the national debt was when he entered office, President Obama said "I don't know what the number was precisely." Obama told Letterman "we don't have to worry about it short term."

The political party of debt borrowed money to finance their convention

How appropriate...

Via Bloomberg:

Democrats ended their convention in Charlotte $5 million short of their budget even after being forced to draw down a $10 million line of credit from Duke Energy Corp. (DUK), according to a Democratic Party fundraiser.

That will leave a $15 million bill that eventually will have to be paid by President Barack Obama’s campaign or the Democratic National Committee, according to the fundraiser, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

The Charlotte Host Committee ended the convention with more than $5 million in immediate obligations and may require a direct cash infusion from the Obama campaign to pay vendors, said the fundraiser.

The national debt topped $16 trillion at the beginning of democrats Charlotte convention.

Interesting. RNC will have giant national debt running during convention...

This is a nice touch. They will also have a separate debt clock that shows how much the debt has increased during the convention.

Chart of the Day: National Debt Interest Payments Exceed Defense Budget In 2019

Via Weekly Standard:

Trouble in Obamaland: U.S. May Hit Debt Ceiling Before November Election

President Obama held out last August for a debt increase that would take him past the November 2012 election. Obama didn't want the voters thinking about his gargantuan deficit spending right before election day. However, President Obama's inability to curtail spending may put him in that very situation anyway. A new study has predicted the government will run out of money again in mid-October.

The United States Department of Treasury will reach the the statutory limit it is allowed to borrow money before election day, according to a new study by Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio., former director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

“Following the contentious debt ceiling last August, President Obama promised that he would take action to address the country’s fiscal crisis. He has failed to do that," Portman said. "In fact, his new budget increases spending and projects that Washington will be hitting the debt ceiling again in mid-October – burning through a $2.1 trillion debt limit increase in just over 14 months."

Portman's office notes that according to Obama's budget, total debt subject to the statutory debt will reach limit will reach $16.334 trillion by September 30, 2012. This is just $60 billion below the 16,394,000,000,000 debt limit. Since the federal government is adding to the national debt at a rate of $132 billion a month, the debt ceiling is on schedule to be reached by October 15, 2012.

Chart of the Day: National Debt 1990-2022(estimated)

$25 trillion by 2021...

Via BuzzFeed:

National Debt At $15 Trillion Milestone

As of today, the number is $14,979,546,341,352.00. That comes to $48,070.50 per each citizen based on 311,616,208 citizens. The number per household is $130,454 based on 114,825,428 households. There is more to this story. 47% of households don't pay federal income taxes anymore. They aren't going to pay this debt or the interest on it. A little calculation brings us to 60,857,476 tax paying households and a federal debt of $246,141 per taxpaying household. If you living in a taxpaying household, your family owes almost a quarter of a million dollars on the national debt and President Obama is running it up more every day. The National Debt stood at $10.626 trillion the day President Obama was inaugurated. The three year increase under President Obama is 4.354 trillion. Your taxpaying household's share of that is $71,536. President Obama has put your taxpaying family in debt an additional seventy-one thousand dollars in three years and he isn't done yet.

(ABC News) — It will be the latest sobering economic milestone that few were hoping to see: The U.S. national debt — any day now — will soar above the $15 trillion mark.


As of this writing, the total debt is $14.97 trillion, so moving beyond the symbolic $15 trillion is a foregone conclusion. When the unwelcome milestone is reached, it will come at a volatile time both in this country and abroad.

Across the Atlantic, President Obama is in Cannes, France, for the G-20 summit that takes place as Europe is trying to finalize a bailout for debt-ridden Greece.

Back on the home front, Obama is preparing for a difficult re-election fight next year. Republican candidates from Mitt Romney to Herman Cain have pounced on the country’s economic woes in their bids to win the GOP nomination and the chance to oppose Obama. Meanwhile, the Occupy Wall Street protests directed at the nation’s financial inequalities continue to rage across the country.

Video: 16 Tons of Debt

This really puts the national deficit in perspective.

Via IowaHawk:

Video: Drunk with Debt (a St. Patrick's Day special)

BankruptingAmerica has produced this St. Patrick's Day beer drinking video illustration of the national debt. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

The National Debt Commercial Major Networks Don't Want You to See

Major networks including ABC, A&E and The History Channel have "deemed" this ad too controversial for you to see.