All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

Since 1989, the National Debt Clock has been a fixture in Manhattan's Times Square. After you've dropped a cool $200 on a Broadway Show, a glimpse of its ominous ticker might deter you from that $20 nightcap.

And now, that clock has run out of numbers. Our national debt, now at $10.2, is one digit larger than the spots available on the sign.

When real estate mogul Seymour Durst created the clock back in 1989, the debt was at $2.7 trillion. Since 2003, it has grown by half a trillion each year, and the bailout Congress just signed will likely kick that number up even higher by the end of 2008.

But rather than retiring the debt sign, the Dursts will redesign it to include enough spaces for a quadrillion.

Expanding the credit line when money is tight - isn't that how we got into this mess in the first place? The debt clock literally is a sign of the times.

Mark Knoller is a White House Correspondent for CBS News.

---

With no fanfare and little notice, the national debt has grown by more than $4 trillion during George W. Bush’s presidency.

It’s the biggest increase under any president in U.S history.

On the day President Bush took office, the national debt stood at $5.727 trillion. The latest number from the Treasury Department shows the national debt now stands at more than $9.849 trillion. That’s a 71.9 percent increase on Mr. Bush’s watch.

The bailout plan now pending in Congress could add hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt – though President Bush said this morning he expects that over time, “much if not all” of the bailout money “will be paid back.”

But the government is taking no chances. Buried deep in the hundred pages of bailout legislation is a provision that would raise the statutory ceiling on the national debt to $11.315 trillion. It’ll be the 7th time the debt limit has been raised during this administration. In fact it was just two months ago, on July 30, that President Bush signed the Housing and Economic Recovery Act, which contained a provision raising the debt ceiling ...

Read full post…

Mark Knoller is a White House Correspondent for CBS News.

---

If you scoured the hundreds of pages of the Housing bill signed today by Pres. Bush, you’d find that buried deep in its bowels – in the hope few would notice – is this:

SEC. 3083. INCREASE IN STATUTORY LIMIT ON THE PUBLIC DEBT.
Subsection (b) of section 3101 of title 31, United States Code, is amended by striking out the dollar limitation contained in such subsection and inserting in lieu thereof $10,615,000,000,000.

It’s a provision that allows the U.S. Government to keep on spending money it doesn’t have and has to borrow.

It raises the legal ceiling on the national debt to more than $10.6 trillion. And it’s the sixth time the debt limit has had to be raised on President Bush’s watch.

On the day President Bush took office, the National Debt stood at $5.7 trillion. That's with a "T." ...

Read full post…

This morning, the chairman of the Federal Reserve confirmed what a lot of Americans already know: The economy is in critical condition.

Ben Bernanake conceded that "a recession is possible." This week, we're taking a closer look at the national debt on the CBS Evening News. The numbers are simply mind-boggling.

To learn more, just click on my Notebook.

Got any spare change? Seems the government may need it. Our Mark Knoller has been keeping an eye on your money and offers this notebook:

(iStockphoto)

Few took notice, but for the first time in U.S. history last Friday, the national debt hit an all-time high of $9 trillion.

To be exact, the total liabilities of the U.S. Government hit $9,005,648,561,262.70, according to the Bureau of the Public Debt at the Treasury Department.

Numerically, that’s in excess of the debt ceiling set by Congress, which stands at $8.965 trillion.

Some components of the national debt are excluded from the debt ceiling calculation.

But had it truly been reached, the Treasury Department would be barred from selling any more bonds, notes and other securities until Congress raises the limit.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson served notice on Congress in July that he expects the U.S. Government to bump into the debt ceiling in early October and that lawmakers need to raise the ceiling before then.

No official notice of the national debt milestone was taken by the White House. Understandably. It’s an embarrassingly large figure for a president who claims to be fiscally-conservative to have to explain.

Mr. Bush often boasts about his commitment to fiscal restraint, and trumpets his efforts to bring down the annual federal deficit from its all-time high of $413 billion in 2004. The Administration forecasts a deficit this year of $205 billion. The forecast from the Congressional Budget Office is lower still at $158 billion.

But Mr. Bush almost never mentions the national debt. On the day he took office, the debt stood at $5.727 trillion. That means it has increased by 57 percent on his watch. So far.

Take a deep breath and read the rest.

While President Bush spends the day trumpeting the decline in the annual federal deficit for the fiscal year that ended September 30th, he mentions not a word about the National Debt.

While the size of the deficit has declined over the last few years, not so the National Debt.

On the day President Bush took office it was $5.727-Trillion.

As of today, the National Debt stands at $8.546-Trillion.

That's a 49.2% increase on his watch.

Read full post…