National debt crosses $15 trillion mark

Updated 5:46 p.m. Eastern Time

The United States' debt on Wednesday exceeded $15 trillion, according to the Treasury Department's "Debt to the Penny" website. 

The total public debt outstanding was listed at $15,033,607,255,920.32 on Wednesday afternoon, with two thirds of that debt held by the public and one third made up of intergovernmental holdings.

(The U.S. Debt Clock website also shows the national debt above $15 trillion, though that site is only an estimate based on actual amounts from 2010 and projected totals from 2011. As CBS News' Mark Knoller points out, the debt doesn't actually continuously rise, as the Debt Clock site suggests; it is based on daily revenues and expenses by the government, and the official number sometimes declines.) 

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain said in response to the news that President Obama's "disastrous economic policies are not only an economic travesty, they are immoral."

"We cannot leave our children and grandchildren with this enormous burden," he said in a statement. "We must take responsibility for our actions."

Another Republican presidential candidate, Texas Governor Rick Perry, said "[t]his astounding debt is a heavy pair of cement shoes for our children and America's economic future." Perry is among the Republicans pushing for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

The Republican National Committee, meanwhile, emailed reporters asking "how much is $15 trillion?" It included claims like "15 Trillion One-Dollar Bills Would Wrap Around The Earth's Equator Over 58,000 Times" and "It Would Take The Average Household Over 300 Million Years To Pay Off The National Debt On Their Own."

On January 20, 2009 - the day Mr. Obama took office - the national debt was $10.63 trillion, according to the Treasury Department. That means the debt has increased approximately $4.37 trillion on his watch.

After a contentious debate, Congress passed a bill to raise the then-$14.294 trillion debt limit on early August, and the bill was signed by the president. That deal established the bipartisan supercommittee charged with agreeing on at least $1.2 trillion in savings over ten years by Thanksgiving; failure to do so is supposed to trigger automatic domestic and defense spending cuts, though members of Congress have signaled they may act to halt automatic cuts.

The debt topped $14 trillion at the beginning of this year. It hit $11 trillion on 3/16/09; $12 trillion on 11/16/09; $13 trillion on 6/1/10; and $14T on 12/31/11.

[DavidHaggith]

The article is a grossly unfair comparison between George Bush II and Obama for a few reasons:


"the Obama years do not afford a fair comparison of Republican vs Democrat on the national debt because we entered what may eventually be called the Great Depression II during the Bush II years"

"Obama has carried out exactly the economic policies that Bush switched to in his final year. He has used the same resident "experts" Bush was relying on, such as Ben Bernanke"

"George W. Bush said he had to "give up on my Capitalist principles" and approved a 900-billion dollar bailout to be followed by ANOTHER 900 billion later if necessary. This second 900 billion was already scheduled to happen during the next administration (whether the next election turned out to yield a Republican president or a Democrat) and amounts to almost half of Obama's accumulated debt. With his first bailout, Obama merely carried out what had been established in the final Bush year. "

( Exerpts from: "Deficits, Debts and Democrats vs Republicans — US national debt in graphs by year and president" http://thegreatrecession.info/blog/?p=2213 )

--Knave Dave

[wfw3536]

When Obama ran in 2008 he said it was a lack of leadership to have to borrow so much money to run our country. Well, in 3 years he has set a new record of almost 5 trillion dollars worth of new debt. He also is the first president ever to see our debt rating reduced.

[RobAla]

$5 trillion in deficit spending in 3 years????!!!!!!! Can anyone in the country honestly say that they like where President Obama has taken this nation? Really, be honest. A track record means something. Does anyone in their right mind think this nation can take 4 more years of this crap?

[honestpatriot]

Do you have any recollection of the 2008-9 financial crisis? Addressing the crisis was costly, resulted in increased spending on unemployment compensation, slowed growth and led to a contraction of tax revenues. All of this would have happened regardless of who was in the White House. Shrinking the debt will require the restoration of economic growth first, followed by gradual, measured spending cuts. But you have to understand something about economics and have to remove the ideological blinders in order to see this.

[anebt]

We can't default, or China will take measures against us we may not want. We can't print ourselves away for the very same reasons. China isn't going to lose on their investment. The only thing that will happen is that government services (think Greece) will have to be cut severely. China can possess US territories as assets, if there is any profit in them. But default? No, we can't.

[DebbieCorona]

Immoral? So what does Cain call the invasion of Iraq based on lies of WMD to the American people? I call it immoral, illegal, and a traitor to the USA.

[rightbehind]

At least the democrats spend it on the United States and its people. The republicans use it to build factories in China.

[rightbehind]

1.5 trillion of that on the two corporate wars. Guess who got the oil? The Chinese. When were the republicans going to tell us??

[Jaylah54]

Yes, feeding hungry children and helping people find jobs is such an immoral thing to do.

But starting wars all over the planet is a moral thing to do. So is pretending climate change doesn't exist so that the planet our children inherit looks remarkably like a nuclear war zone.

And sexually harassing women and then lying about it when you get caught is really moral, too.

[Progress4USA]

And then there's that "In god we trust." thing the GOP is wasting time on...

[mb99]

While the news is indeed sobering... there will no doubt be GOP partisans who will incorrectly rail about "Obama's spending". The fact is, the CBO forecast the trillion dollar deficits we are now experiencing on Jan 7th, 2009 - weeks before Obama even took office. I challenge those partisans to DETAIL the specific programs and dollars that they claim are "Obama's spending"

[Progress4USA]

The GOP is too busy trying to reaffirm "In god we trust."...

[retm-w]

jgg00010

No it's up to congress to explain it, they hold the purse strings.

[Progress4USA]

Two unfunded mismanaged wars cost money folks. And YES, I blame it ALL on BUSH!!!!