Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Federal Borrowing on Pace to Hit Debt Limit in Less Than Week










As set in a law passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama on Feb. 12, 2010, the legal limit on the national debt is $14.2940 trillion. As of the close of business Tuesday, according to the Daily Treasury Statement released at 4:00 pm today, the portion of the national debt subject to this legal limit was $ 14.268365 trillion. (The total national debt, including the portion exempted from the legal limit, was $14.3205 trillion.)

This left the U.S. Treasury with the authority to borrow only an additional $25.635 billion before it hits the statutory debt limit.

On April 4, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) in order to warn Congress that the Treasury was approaching the legal debt limit. In an appendix to this letter, Geithner pointed to the rapid pace at which new debt was accumulating.

“On average,” Geithner wrote, “the public debt of the United States increases by approximately $125 billion per month (although there are significant variations from month to month).”

In a 31-day month, $125 billion in new debt works out to an average of $4.03 billion in new debt per day. At that pace, the $25.635 billion in legal borrowing authority the Treasury had left at the close of business on Tuesday would be exhausted in less than seven days.

Geithner’s letter did not spell out the time period he used to determine that the debt increases at approximately $125 billion per month. In fact, according to the official debt figures published by the Treasury itself, the debt has been increasing at a somewhat faster pace than $125 billion per month during the Obama presidency.

On Jan. 20, 2009, the day Obama was inaugurated, the portion of the nation debt subject to the legal limit (a small portion of the debt is exempted from the limit) was $10.568142 trillion. By April 19, 2011, the portion of the national debt subject to the limit had increased to 14.268365 trillion. That means that during the first 821 days of Obama’s presidency the debt increased by $3.700223 trillion—or $4.5 billion per day.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Marco Rubio is a badass...

I was listening to Sean Hannity on the way home today. He was interviewing Marco Rubio. I have to tell you, I am jealous of Florida. They have Rubio and I am stuck with claire mccaskill.

He talked a lot about the continuing resolutions congress keeps passing. He has very strong opinions on how we got to the financial situation we are in. The inability of congress to pass a budget for the last couple of years has left us looking rather stupid in the eyes of the world. We borrow about 4 BILLION dollars every 30 HOURS. Can you even imagine that? Most of that money we borrow from China.

What is going to happen to us when our creditors refuse to loan us more money? At some point that has to happen. We will get to a level of debt that we just won't have the ability to pay back.

Hannity also asked him about running for president in 2012. He completely ruled that out. He says he is far more interested in doing the job the people of Florida hired him to do. He also ruled out a run as vice president.

For as bad as our Country needs a president with the views Marco Rubio has, you have to commend the guy for wanting to stand by the commitments he made to his State.

I agree with Hannity that Rubio will be president one day...