November 16, 2011 4:51 PM

National debt crosses $15 trillion mark

By
Brian Montopoli
Topics
Campaign 2012

chart national debt

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.


Add a Comment See all 19 Comments
by wfw3536 November 16, 2011 11:43 PM EST
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.
Reply to this comment
by RobAla November 16, 2011 9:27 PM EST
$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?
Reply to this comment
by honestpatriot November 17, 2011 12:21 AM EST
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.
by anebt November 16, 2011 7:29 PM EST
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.
Reply to this comment
by DebbieCorona November 16, 2011 7:28 PM EST
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.
Reply to this comment
by hypnotoad72 November 16, 2011 7:04 PM EST
Cain speaks at the behest of the Koch brothers. Let's hear politicians openly tell of the national debt since it started to spiral in the early-1980s and was halted and reversed only once (late-1990s). Let's hear politicians blame BOTH sides, where it is due. Let's hear politicians discuss CONTEXT, meaning the money spent going to help this country rather than the highest bidders demanding a return on their "investment".

And, so far, and while he's not perfect, only Obama comes close to meeting that criteria.
Reply to this comment
by rightbehind November 16, 2011 6:36 PM EST
At least the democrats spend it on the United States and its people. The republicans use it to build factories in China.
Reply to this comment
by rightbehind November 16, 2011 6:35 PM EST
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??
Reply to this comment
by mecanik-2009 November 16, 2011 5:51 PM EST
The country is broke and it's going to be making a decision in the future. We need to default on the American dollar. We need to tell the federal reserve we're not going to pay them back because it wasn't legal in the first place. They scammed the American public and loaned worthless dollars to the government thinking we didn't know the difference. Well we do. Lets get back to the Gold standard and start over.
Reply to this comment
by Progress4USA November 16, 2011 5:59 PM EST
No can do...the GOP juts reaffirmed "In god we trust." and that's all they feel is needed to back up the U.S. dollar.
by Jaylah54 November 16, 2011 5:38 PM EST
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.
Reply to this comment
by Progress4USA November 16, 2011 5:41 PM EST
And then there's that "In god we trust." thing the GOP is wasting time on...
by mb99 November 16, 2011 5:27 PM EST
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"
Reply to this comment
by Progress4USA November 16, 2011 5:37 PM EST
The GOP is too busy trying to reaffirm "In god we trust."...
by retm-w November 16, 2011 6:45 PM EST
jgg00010

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